Fastlane: Final Stretch
by Demyrie
Summary: AU, JakX. Sex, drugs and alchohol make up the better part of the racing background, but eternallygreen Daxter forces his way in, heart set on the king of the track... a certain blonde racer. JakxDaxter. THOROUGHLY CHANGED AND UPDATED, so REJOICE!
1. PROLOGUE

This is an interesting piece of mine, brought back to life by the lovely Bluberry. (So blame her for anything that transpires XP) I revamped the story, all the chapters and the bad sex, so… I think it's pretty good now. In the end, I so enjoyed working on it!

In the crudest of terms, this little collection/short series pits Dax as a slutty fanboy out for Jak's ass, and Jak as a cold, equally slutty racer with an anger complex. Sound too idiotic to be at ALL good or sane? Or plausible? Hmm?

Well, it's way beyond that now! TOO LATE! This fic got reaaally messed up, and turned in on itself. Now it's just a little ball of hatred and angst and drugs with hot sex as an afterthought :O IT MAKES ME SAD!

Waitno. It makes me HORRIBLY happy. I will burn for this, I assure you.

Yep, this IS an Alternate Universe, but I've only tweaked the characters in a few significant ways. They still have their essences, I think: it's just that Dax is a little more... er, gay. Way gay. And more clever/observant than usual (and crude!), and Jak is… Jakkish! But mean. But a lot of people think he's mean, so that's no big.

His heartlessness is ALL for a reason, though. Plot ahoy!

ENJOY. It's just a fun, demented read :3 With loads of disturbing imagery.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Rating: M (Adult language, sexual content, drugs and rock'n roll)

Pairing: JakxDaxter, Alternate Universe

Type: Multichapter

Warning: Slight implied spoiler for Jak3, due to a bit of name-changing I pulled. Plus copious amounts of bad words, violence, drug-use and sex EVERYWHERE.

Be on the lookout for connections between AU themes :3 I DO tie aspects of Jak2-3 in here very heavily. SO YIPEE!

---------

PROLOGUE

---------

It was fast. Alllllways fast. With him, it couldn't have been anything BUT fast.

Slow? Phht. Never. Hell, he didn't have an off-switch. He took life like a race, never thinking he could stop or else he'd lose.

Lose what? Search me.

All I knew was that hell or high water, I was gonna keep up. For the prize, for the race, to win what he was tryin' to-- 'cos _damn_ it had to be good. Good like he was good, and boy was he was worth it.

Worth it every time, even when everything else got seriously fucked up.

I loved a hell of a lot of things about the guy. I loved how he'd talk to me, like I was the only one hearin' it--even if I only got stupid little tidbits, even if he never talked to me for real.

I loved how he raced, like he was the only guy mowin' the track. Soaked through with colored lights like some sort of blurry sponge of electricity, trailing the stuff like fire: all the hotter 'cos you knew that same burn was cranked up on the inside, too. Waitin' for you.

I loved how he sunk his teeth into my neck and called me his prize as he pinned me hard against the lockers, not even peeling off that stupid rubber suit but stripping me down to zip and a half to do whatever he wanted. I loved how I took that, how I loved all of that: the smell of wet leather and oil, the clammy strain of his suit against my stomach, zipper grazing my thighs as he panted in my ear, moving as fast as he could 'cos it was a race to him.

He told me, hey, let's race.

I said, sure. Why not?

And he always, always got there first, groaning silently as he crossed the line and heaved us both against the frigid lockers with a deep-set shudder. I racked up so many bruises from that I didn't even wanna count, but I could never feel the hinges digging into my shoulders as I followed him to the checkered mark, sagging over his strong shoulders.

Life's a party. That's what he always told me.

Life's a party, life's a race.

But what do you do when the race is finished and you got first?

What do you do when the party's over and your ride skipped out on you? What then?

You never know 'till it slaps you in the face. Then it's just too damn late.

… Fuck. It's just too damn late.


	2. ONE

A/N: This chapter and the next contains some highly explicit canoodling, and thus is not allowable on Ffnet. It will be available, however, on my Adultfanfictionnet account _when I'm actually legal to get it,_ which will be within the next four months (when I'm eighteen and a HALF). So just assume that chapters one and two are indeed complete and terrifying in their sexiness, and you'll get the whole package later.

Sorry to all those who have asked repeatedly where my AFF account is: I'll update this with an announcement when I get it. For now, enjoy!

Because NOW, this story really is more about plot than sex :D Hooray!

(And I'm uploading in such a chunk to say sorry for how long this story has languished. So enjoy doublemoreso!)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

ONE

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

As a slummer kid from birth, I ain't sayin' I got the best life.

In fact, it could brighten up in a clean dozen ways, but hey-- it's rough pickins where I'm at. Hot cars, chic threads, loads of cash… that kinda stuff don't just grow on trees! Especially here, since you gotta stage a three week escapade to even see a lick of green around here that ain't cuddled up all nice and stringy in a gutter like a science-lab escapee.

But hey! I've turned out to be the best man in town for my trials and tribulations, and for the price of my stunning reputation, I can learn to suck up to my lot in life. When you're liftin' your grub and your air from the Eastside slums, there ain't anything more _to_ do but suck it up and keep a stiff lip… and get some sugar where you can.

So you can understand my deliciously twisted mentality when I first saw him. My Mar, track demon extraordinaire. Blue lightning.

He was the sugar. One-hundred percent sugar. And I was gonna get some.

His full handle was Mar Haggai. Pretty stiff name for such a slick babe, (can we say mono-syllabic? Little did I know, the rest of him would follow suit…) but I was hooked the second I caught sight of him. He was a pretty boy. A pretty, pretty boy—_gods_, he was gorgeous! Yeah, you tell me to wipe my chin, I'll tell you to wipe yours, cos _no one_ held a match to this guy. Scept me, 'course, but we're conversin' in mortal-friendly terms here. Visages of gods are outta the loop for now.

For the record, he was a racer.

Races are _big_ news in this dump: the greatest, drug-pumped thing since sliced bread. Yeah, Haven even manages to screw up sliced bread. Go fig'.

The stadium was the nocturnal hotspot for the whole city, and hosted the stuff the little brats whined to see before bedtime, slimy noses glued to their screen to pick a favorite racer. It's a kinda stress relief, too: when the gutterkids are smacked around so much by the KG, they gotta see _someone_ get smashed up 'sides them, so the track serves it. When you ain't got a cent left, you like seein' people lose more'n you ever had. It's sick, but it's real.

The rounds those chumps run are shot through with all kinds of totally psycho booby-traps, spikes and mines and stuff: scream-fodder for the fans. The flyin' sawblades are a definite crowd favorite.

The runs are so haywire, a regular racer's gotta be a little insane in the membrane to let all that stuff slide on a daily basis. This is like, homicide on wheels! But cos'a that, the general bling the racers pack up is big stuff.

Racers themselves are the big shots in this city. They get anything they want dished to 'em on a silver platter; they're treated like kings in the pits of this hellhole. Definitely eye-candy… when they don't have half a saw-blade playin' hackie-sac with their knees, that is. They usually choose the beefier lookin' guys (the fugly beasts you know just _reek_ of zoomer-juice and scrub their hides, like, once or twice a _month_) to take the track regularly, but every so often a _real_ pretty one slips in with all the hip-hogs. _That_ was Mar.

Mm-mmm. Blonde hair, blue eyes, body like a track star. One who was gorgeous as hell, but could still take the beating the courses dished out, buffet-style. Rugged, sharp as a whip. Never bit off more than he could chew; he was so damn smooth, and always made it to the end clean as a whistle where the other guys were belching zoomer guts.

He got _skills_.

And 'cos he was the only one who wouldn't make you toss your lunch on sight, whenever he absolutely shredded the competition and whipped across the finish line like a rocket… the camera pullers always closed up on him.

Deeeeefinitely mi parto favorito, 'f you catch my drift. Oh yeah. I loved that guy from first sight.

As for racing itself? Frikkin' jibberish to me. Some cockeyed, half-assed excuse for a sport where precursors cull the herd by bashing in an idiot's noggin every other lap. A living, thriving paradigm of natural selection. That stuff is brutal.

I only knew what everyone else did: tight wheels, high speeds, seven guys, big explosions, and on the side, an _ass-load_ of booty-calls and LSD. And believe me, it wasn't a scene I'd normally prance my way into, being the literal saint I am, but… I was caught, hook-line and sinker, the second I saw him. I got the feeling hanging in the grimiest of clubs wasn't gonna be the tip of the iceberg as to how far I'd go to get what I wanted.

Racers are the royalty of this dump--and hell or high water, I was gonna pay a visit to the king.

Nobody knew too much about him. All people saw was this stringy, rough slicker burnin' up rubber in the limelight. If the way he threw it down lap for lap was _any_ red flag to his personality type, I had a funny little feeling this was gonna be one _wild_ ride.

Other than that, rumor was he was an orphan. Never had a mom (Mar popped out of a pumpkin, apparently), pops died when the kid was just a peanut. Buggy wreck: the guy was a wheel-trickster, too. Big hot shot in the old days… Kramas, Dumas, Danal, somethin' like that. Named him Mar, and that was that. So with his folks' off-the-bat dash for the pearly gates, he got picked up by this nutty old guy who's still fallin' hard for that whole 'Eco, Power of the Universe' crock, and Mar got thrown in with his little girl, and was undoubtedly exposed to a decade of 'patty-cake'. The guy didn't come out of it with a clean head, believe me. The chick's his tuner-upper now, and Mar just hangs with the old biscuit and the tart, racing for a living: keeps the chick's shop going, and 'probly keeps Logtop seein' all those loopy _eco vibes_ with plenty'a smack cash.

He's a real mystery. Secret-agent, kinda: never seen too much in the light of day. He seemed to suck in night, a practical vampire. Yep-yep! Even in day versus night, you can tell he's got his _preferences_!

Ah, yeah.

He's a very decisive guy, obviously, and makes his wants and needs known… and the requirement that caught _my_ fancy, and half the reason I'm bustin' my balls over this, was one thing, and one thing only. It was that, even though the guy had half the city under his pretty little thumb, and anybody'd lick his boots for free… he totally gave one half of his fans the cold shoulder. Extra frosty-style.

The highly unfortunate half of the _female_ persuasion.

Yep, he only threw it down with guys! Not that it was a problem anyways: in my ultimate sexiness transcending humanity as a whole, doncha think it'd pass up gender on the way? No matter which way the guy swung, straight or crooked, I knew I'd bring him around. If I take a shine to a pretty guy, I can yank him from the straight and narrow and send him down wild walkway in less than a week: 'cos I'm just so irresistible like that.

Humble, too.

Regardless, I knew I wanted a run on Mar's road. I always had a thing for guys on the higher up, and with that conveniently clingy rubber suit he always squeaked around in? He was _mine_. Grade-A, certified _mine_.

… I swear, sometimes I'm almost animal-like in my fierce and inspiring defense of things. Why am I getting pictures of orange hackles and a cozy-warm brown nose? Anyways. I had to get him. That much was true.

King of the Racers, meet God of the Slums.

To get the gears grindin' on my magnificent little seduction plot, I went to one of his races in person, not tube-wise. He only raced certain days, ('cos ya gotta have ass in moderation, else it ain't special anymore! He was the audience's treat!) so otherwise it just wasn't worth draggin' your tired ass to the stadium after a long day's work: 'cos all the other zoomer-boys were so wacked out on veteran brain-damage, they could hardly keep from tonguin' the handlebars! Gimme a double yuck, _total_ turn off. Mar was usually the only one who wasn't drooling rivers, so that upped the sex appeal a good five-pointer!

I yelped and whooped like everyone else, but was '_probly_ first haulin' ass outta the stadium. I let it slip to my sweet little landlady that I was lookin' to hook up with a special someone, and she told me he always took off straight after the winners circle and beat it to a bar to get _crazy_ smashed (convenient much? Half my work done for me!). Said she'd seen him at this little hole in the wall called the Dirty Ottsel, or _something_, where she nightshifts as a booze-girl. The guy bar-hops like it's a matter of life and death, never parkin' his rear in the same place twice. Probably smart, cos he'd have the whole stadium after him if his drinking habits were anything but random as hell.

Believe me, I landed Tess the _biggest_ smooch for that little nugget of info, 'cos cuttin' out my killer instincts, it was the only reason I was creeping along in an alleyway an hour later, trying to stay two blocks behind the guy without losin' him. So I could make a Casual Entrance, y'know?

He moseyed down a few back allies that I didn't even know about, all walkin' with this stiff 'hello-itchy-jockstrap' pace, and finally yanked open the door to this withered little dump and slipped inside. The sputtering, reluctantly glowing sign read "Nini's Niche" but hell if they didn't name it somethin' trashier to fit the rest of the place. The thing was belching smoke from every crumbling hole it had--which made for a LOT of smoke.

Already buzzing at my future squeeze's exotic, tasteless choice in bar-spots, I shoved my way in.

The inside was just like the outside: rickety, tacked together by stray nails and sourly lit with wailing, half-dead neon. Slimy, definitely, but surprisingly packed up to the elbows. I nudged my way through, immediately plucking the literal stone of my boy's figure out of the mangy crowd, tucked away in a badly lit corner. He'd just flagged down a dainty little tart with a wave of his hand, the girl _completely_ oblivious to who she was waitin' tables for, 'cos there was none of the usual screaming and pawing.

Waging another Deadtown War to get into his corner, he stayed glued to his drink as I dove onto a stool next to him, snatching Daisy-Duke Darla for a fix of my own.

There was a stiff second of silence as she tapped off on her six-inch heels, Mar's hunch over the table spelling a flat 'no touchy'.

Ignoring it, I draped myself over my stool with a wide grin, cranking my charms to the max.

"So. Sooo… you're that racer everybody's been yappin' about, huh?" I shot casually, looking him over and taking in his stiff, stringy muscles.

God, he was better in person. Like, definitely better.

On second glance, Mar hadn't exactly come outta the track-biz, ah, _unmarred_, you could say! My lovely little close-up threw all the thin scars spidering over his jaw into sharp relief, a monstrous one scratched _deep_ all across the bridge of his nose. Shrapnel love-wounds, oh yeah. His hacked-off blonde locks were plastered to his forehead from the warm night, brows thick and looming over his hard blue eyes.

He was banged up, but not in the way I was gonna get him! Rode hard and put away wet, definitely--and I was cued for a front-row seat to an encore performance.

My patented 'lusty grin' inched a bit farther, and I grazed his plated shoulder with my fingers.

"Mar, right?"

He stirred from his booze-guzzling, life shrugging into his shoulders as his strong jaw dipped in a perfunctory nod. Didn't even look at me. Then the turtle was back into hide-mode. Compleeeeetely blew me off.

I drummed my fingers on the bar, leaning back with a sigh.

"Yeppp… Racing. Pretty good biz, I hear… I'll have you know, Mister Track-Terror, that I used to race a little in my spare time."

He obviously wouldn't wake up for anything short of a nuclear explosion, so I decided to bullshit him to get a little interest. And it worked: he actually looked over at that, somber eyes coated with sour colors from the neon.

"Really."

I nodded, shining my nails on my shirt with a suave, lazy air.

"Oh hell yeah! I was crazy-good! This is before you came around, though. Mmmyep… I could make anybody eat their words from the east-slums to the west when I was pullin' nothin' but aces."

A little bit of urging and already I was droning like those old veterans at the track. How old was this guy? Looked, like, twenty-eight, give or take. C'mon, I looked about twenty-eight as it was. All that manly aura, y'know: never mind I was six years sans it.

With me off somewhere else, he nearly scared the bejeezus outta me when he said more than one word--and made me remember I was tiptoeing along one of my verbal high-wires again.

"I can see it."

I just stared at him, making a questioning sound and luring his eyes over me in a quick flicker.

"Your build would be good for racing. Scrawny bodies don't rack up a lot of air resistance. But you don't have the weight for turns. You'd drift high."

Pointedly ignoring everything I didn't know a lick about (but all of what I could learn in an afternoon if I _wanted_ to, 'course…), I nodded in a definite yes, then sagged in what I knew was the very drama of reminiscence.

Be the fallen hero, Daxter! Be the hero!

"Yeah, it was all pretty good… until I got into this _huge_ crash, I mean, Precursors, I still get dreams about it, and the docs said I could never cram my toesies into a slicker-boot again."

I looked up from the dripping gaze I was lavishing on my ankles, and perched the cherry on the bullshit pie: why I wasn't racing now. If he got onto me for not remembering stuff, I can always say the crash got my noggin too!

Oh yeah. Prepare for smoothness. Play the gimp card.

"I hurt somethin' real bad down in my … my feet! Yeah, that's it. My feet are just too banged up to race anymore, poor guys." I whacked my boots fondly, sticking a little wince in there for effect as he watched silently. "I mean, ow, I can hardly look at 'em anymore without getting these wiggy flashbacks of my glory days… Yikes!"

"You can walk fine."

He definitely knotted my narrative yarn with that.

I started, eyebrows rocketing up to my goggles. Forget the fact I'd never really juiced up anything but my old G6 Rustbucket, I had to slide one past the guy who was ridin' the top of the charts. Cue the lethal stumble on my thin, waggling high-wire.

"Uh…" I stalled, glancing up with my nose to the floor, still hanging onto his attention; I mean, he was _obviously_ hooked on me, I couldn't drop the ball now! … Not that dropping the ball is possible with yours truly.

"I... said race, not walk. Totally different ball game. Get me?" I grinned suddenly, leaning back now that the storm had passed, and waiting for the reaction to my stunning performance to register on his flat face. "Whatever… happened down there, it's dandy on the trottin' bit, I just can't get on the track."

"Nice," He muttered it dryly around the rim of his cup, and I waited for the rest.

But he just pulled a ninety-degree, staring off into space.

I just watched him, mouth working in an unnatural spasm of gracelessness, and tackled my words from thin air.

"Ah, a… great! A guy of few words! I like that. Gives yours truly more room to r--"

I almost flung my drink to the four winds when he turned to face me _violently_, eyes hard and flat underneath his lowered brows.

"Listen, kid. Get out of here." He seemed like a gargoyle, turning back to stone over his booze with a low mutter after scaring me spitless with an ugly word. "I don't have any cash, and I'm not looking for any right now. You're out of luck."

…Uh?

Took a second of the thinking-chair on my part, but I ended up glaring at him.

Cash? Looking for any?

…Great.

He thought I was a hooker. He thought I was a fucking hooker, just perfect. Seamless.

_Fuming_, I ground my mouth into a thin frown and jerked away from him, screwing with my drink.

"Yeah, well, that's peachy for you." I muttered loftily, the blatant, violent _stabbing_ of my ice-cubes belying the smooth glance I threw him from lidded eyes. "Thanks oodles for givin' me the heads up, Coverboy, but you couldn't dig up enough green for this sexy piece of action if I gave you ten years."

His expression shifted a centimeter (everything happened on a micro-scale with this jerk, so if he gave me an inch I'd damn well take a thousand miles). Shock.

"Not for sale? I'm surprised," He said amusedly, and I bristled at his lazy stare.

The guy should really think his idiotic one-liners through before he spits 'em out, or he could _offend_ somebody.

"Unfortunately for _you_, no! You couldn't keep your mitts on what I got if I gave you velvet gloves! Despite the demand, there's no supply: poor you. No poutin'. Y'know, it's a wonder I'm so innocent and humble with chumps like you after my ass…"

He looked at me full on for the first time that night, and I felt a little spark go off in my throat. It only jumped up a notch with a twist of that chapped, unforgiving mouth, voice that slipped from it oddly quiet but demanding. The guy didn't have to raise his voice an inch to get attention.

"What's your name?"

I scoffed, quick grin dousing my _well_-deserved irritation of earlier as I slapped at his shoulder.

"Took you long enough!" I stuck out my hand, seeing his eyes train on it. "Name's Daxter. You can call me heaven or hell: dependin' on what floats your boat. Either way you're dealin' with a god!"

He almost smiled at that.

I watched with this almighty hiccup bobbing behind my throat as he slowly took up my fingers, brain-surgery-type delicate: too slow and warm, like through water. Then once he got me, he threw me the wimpiest shake in the world, a bare tilt of his wrist--but 'shaking hands' wasn't about shakin' anymore.

It was about touchin' and somethin' else, and I could feel it down to my toes with that huge, callused hand furled around mine. It was like… sex. Precursors help me: hand sex. Real warm and close, palms sandwiched with all the tingly little pieces touching, like he was groping something else instead'a my hand and workin' it real smooth and slow. He let go with a lagging little squeeze, like he was squeezin' something right outta me, and hell if it wasn't a woody.

Yes, _please_.

I had to rattle myself to reality and nail my lips together _not_ to tongue them to pieces as he turned from me, this thin little smirk hanging on his face. He bent to his drink, leaving me with my jaw on my knees.

"Nice to meet you, Daxter." He took a sip, his eyes like two glaring blue glass-pieces in the low light, reflecting the thick shadows.

"Now tell me what you want."

And so, we talked. Or maybe I did.

Five seconds in, it was as clear as day that he was a cold little mother, but I was crankin' up the heat with every word! With a few drinks and daring dos, combined with my masterful conversation skills, I practically had him rolling underneath my thumb on the hour mark. I mean, hey, he 'probly knew he was gonna find himself falling for my irresistible charms anyways, so the smart guy just gave into temptation! I like a guy who's not afraid to surrender to a guy one-up on the ladder. Shows real smarts.

And of course, as soon as he was nice and loosened up from all the booze, he just _happened_ to 'let it slip' that he worked for the other side (seein' a hardhat of the same profession perched on yours truly's noggin, maybe?), but it was _so_ obvious! Hello! What with all the pointedly lingering oglings of my godly body every other second, I practically had to beat him off me with a stick! Jeez!

It was a thrill in a nutshell to have those lidded eyes flicker and pause in all the right places, and I ate it up like candy.

I officially signed off on the "Invade Base Mar" mission slip when we moseyed out, like, two hours later, completely smashed off our asses, and he told me to come watch him race tomorrow. He was gonna be surprise contestant that day as a crowd pleaser, and the whole thing was real hush-hush- and he _told_ me.

Like I said: putty in my hands. I can't deny how absolutely smooth I am, so I ain't gonna lift a finger for it.

Couldn't stop thinking about the whole deal all that night. I mean, we obviously clicked! The only thing that rankled me was the lack of body-clicking with the brain-clicking: he was a pretty steady drunk, so he didn't even get handsy with me! I mean c'mon, the fun is _where_? But _hell_, tossin' aside a few formalities, I was actually gettin' a go at Mar. _Mar_! Hello, the legend, the crazy-ass slicker who anybody'd kill to beat! I wasn't droppin' this lead for the _world_. I'd be crazy to do anything but keep movin' forward and _makin'_ the moves!

But I only caught the barest whiff of how twisted the whole package was gonna be when I showed up at the races the next day… sportin' a steamy little somethin' that was _just_ inviting enough.

I hung around real close to the locker room seat-wise, plotting to kick my innate charms into gear and shmooze my way to the locker-room floor before my target split. The race was a regular, and I wasn't too into watching it- competition was real flat, and all these jerks kept shoving into the stadium late after catching wind Mar was on the track. I haaaaad to smile just a BIT at that, and ended up with a sore foot from so much tappin' impatiently, watchin' Mar grind all the other clowns into the walls. God, that boy was vicious.

But all the grinding was making me edgy. Grinding in another sense of the word, but I wanted some too, _hello_!

Needless to say, I was biting at the bit to get going as the audience rocked to its feet with a yawning scream, signaling the end of the final lap- with Mars Bar (sweet like candy!) shredding the checker-mark like a bat outta hell. I shot up and scuttled backstage as the roar died, knowing Mr. #1 was usually the last outta the track and into the showers. Maybe he liked that musty post-race stench? Either way he was always late, and I hung around and fussed with my hair until the rest of the grunts cleared out (like the smell they trailed around REFUSED to do), just watchin' the national ugly parade stomp on by.

Waiting and waiting and _waiting_.

I'd just eyeballed the last grunge-monkey who came out ten minutes before, and was _just_ playing with the option that Mar'd blown me off and was at some bar, smashin' his brains out… when he came stalking around the corner, bulky frame working furiously in his skintight suit like a well-oiled, churning contraption. The guy was leaking energy, each step slapping on the cold linoleum. Hello pay dirt!

I coaxed on my aura of ultimate sexiness, before realizing it was already workin' full force (oh, silly me), and slipped around the corner, tipping Mar off the second I did- guy's got ears like a minx. I watched as he whirled, tilting casually against the wall to look him over. His eyes locked on me, wild underneath his ratted, windblown hair- pretty mug melting into that dry little smirk, and he just stood there.

"Showed up after all?"

The guy had a habit of tossing pronouns like I'll never believe. Cute, but the MPH of a parked zoomer could whip up on his IQ.

His growl had this wacko electric eagerness shot through it, hands twitching and jerking at his sides like they were snatching up a handlebar, clenching for control of any kind. I rose up against the wall, pressing a finger pointedly to my mouth.

"Mmyeah. Thought I'd drop by." My cute little drawl sparked something in his glowing eyes, and they kicked into hungry hyper-drive as I clamped back a grin. So, fisting through my favorite pants (leather, mind you!), I cocked myself against the wall for a little casual banter.

"Saw you out there. Pretty nice."

He acted like it glanced off his ears, off in his own little world as he closed in on me with a stiff swagger, practically drillin' holes in my noggin. Like his usual 'umf' in the bar, but hopped up to a whole 'nother level. His too-bright eyes stapled me to the ground as he reached out to thumb distantly at my thin shirt, taut touch flitting to rest on my hip. Eyeing me like a five course dinner to a starving Joe, his fingers squeezed, a kiss of a jolt cinching around my pelvis like he wanted to feel me up hardcore, and he said in a low, dripping voice, completely oblivious-

"I like your pants."

Grin rocketing to my ears, my chest clamored as I took an easy step forward- now swaying just underneath him. I landed a quick little flick to his towering chest, teasing-like.

"So… we're all alone in a dark hallway… and you like my pants. Sounds pretty convenient." I glanced up lazily, knowing smirk curling my mouth as I felt the tug and clammy lag of the rubber under my fingers. "Get me?"

Looming over me, a purple-tasting spark threaded dryly through the air between us, sending my hair on end.

"Yeah." He rasped, that same spark buried in his eyes like a held breath. "I get you."

He darted forward like a slap, and was on me like a second skin.

He definitely got me.


	3. TWO

A/N: Woopie D: Now when THIS is done, we can get to the PLOT.

Sorry again for the lack of umf.

-.-.-.-.-.-

TWO

-.-.-.-.-.-

After that lovely little night in the thick'a the jungle, I ain't gonna say that was the last time I saw him. Even though it's what you'd put your cards on for a high-class slicker like him, ain't it? Bang, poof, gone, right? Poor Daxter, never saw him again, 'scept for on the big screen? Nah. It'd be a fitting ending for a one-shot… but for me, 'poof' was as far from the truth as you could get.

I saw Mar. A lot.

After that first mind-bending yet punctual fling, a _microscopic_ part of me was whining how that was the _last_ time I should prooo-bably do that (all ownin' mainly to the fact the guy was stickin' me sans rubber: maybe he got so much of it on the track that he needed a little time in the buff, huh?) but hell. It wasn't workin'.

That speck of reason was instantly booted by my other, horny ninety-nine percent, and ran home with his tail between his legs… leavin' me free to breeze with the easy. I was gonna do that. Again. And again.

And I did. Again. And again. _And again._

As many times as I wanted, as many times as I could, and I knew right then that Mar was worse than crack. And hey, I ain't paintin' castles in the sky here. I know we had a real readers-digest, abridged little intro, some pre-foreplay quips, some pre-nookie banter and already I was flippin' for a second helping. And that's pretty odd for me, considering what an intellectual and insightful guy I am! But hey: they say love is blind. Well, love's 'probly got a sock in his mouth, too, 'cos that's exactly how it was with Mar.

Never talked much, but damn did he know how to give the _good_ lovin'.

His hands were everywhere, dangerous; playing over all the buttons on somethin' just _beggin'_ to blow… namely, me.

Teasing at my nipples when his teeth weren't delicately fastened there, squeezing just enough so that I'd make a sound. A soft yelp, but just one: then he'd stop, mouth sliding with each rough pass of his tongue, like he was religiously wearing me down to nothing.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Daxter? Shit, nobody knows as long as Mar's doin' the dirty work.

'Cos just before I snap and let it all go, he'd always move and do it all over again, pissing me off in a hot way I never could _get_. He never screwed me quite right; nothin' was ever perfect, always too rough or too quick (even though I could take anything he could dish, of course) but it was the glitches that made it so hot and kept me crawlin' back. Sucked me off once and it took, like, ten seconds flat; couldn't twitch for ten minutes afterwards.

His mojo was exponential: the guy had a better handle on sex than he did on a zoomer, and that was sayin' something. He could'a spun me off the corner of a credit chip.

And I was peachy keen with it, bein' a booty call and all. Mar was a sweet one to tussle with: you could change the smelly, benchiful location, add in some toys and call it the ride of my life. The only bone I had to pick with the guy was his sticky little habit of turning up AWOL immediately after a quickie. A real hit'n run deal. Like, we're talking drive-by screwing. I wasn't even allowed in the ride.

I'd be in literal heaven, stuck against some locker and all too ready to doze off when he'd zip that rubber suit back up like he was some freeze-dried pack of meat! Then came manhandling me into the shower and crankin' up the juice like we were runnin' behind on some _schedule_. Since I was the one pulling nudesies and already sopping wet, I couldn't exactly haul ass after him; and the one time I did, I'm sure some security camera got a pretty eyeful, 'cos that gym's towels didn't come in any flavor besides _used_, and that's one flavor I don't do.

Should'a seen it: me, _pure_ me, drippin' like an IV in the middle of a reeeeeal empty hallway. The bitch was as fast on foot as he was on wheels.

Shouldn't'a neeked me so much, 'cos I knew how it was. (rar I want your ass, yay you got it, whutev yo, fuck, fuckfuckfuck, yay, okay I'm gone and you're cool with that kthxbye!) But I couldn't shake that brittle, pissy feeling as I scraped my skin off so I could last till the next roll--and _wonderin'_ when we could take it outta the damn locker room. Cos' I was bruising like a banana here!

The whole _thing_ we had… you could'a pegged it as, like, recurring one-night stands. Seven stands a week. Each of 'em the same, but pointedly unconnected… Disjointed. I felt like I was eatin' déjà vu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I'd started going to the races most every week, and then more: 'cos what I got from the main attraction only upped in hot-factor. Usually we got it on way, way after hours, after all the other guys'd headed home… but one night was different.

Que Daxter. Scene: shower, post-Mar.

I'd just palmed the water off, stomping to shake the rankling ache in my ass (a clean three-second lead in track-time that night'd given Mar a bit of a happy buzz, and he was sweet enough to beat it out on me, the lovable lug) when the doors flapped open. The thick clap of four booted feet on the linoleum _plastered_ me to the corner of the shower, and I nearly screamed- in a… non-girly way.

Totally.

The two guys stomped around and slammed some lockers, wandering pretty damn close to my foxhole (and bringing the horrible 'big thugs with unclean intentions ganging up on the cute, sprightly redhead in the shower' scene to mind, which knocked up my thumpin' heart to a good, clean ninety) grumbling on in punctuated remarks about weather, or how the air was par-TICUL'RLY moist in the locker room. Um… gulp?

They rustled away with something for a few seconds, and one of 'em suddenly grunted.

"Hey- you seen a kid hangin' around here? Red hair, jacked up teeth? Ugly as sin?"

In any other case I'da had _no idea_ who they were talking about, but due to the fact that redheads were just about as common as nuns in Haven and that the locker-room'd been my second home for about a month, I lost it. I was ready n' rippin' to tear out there and kick some _major_ ass, they just had to _wait_ for it--but fell short with, er, a silent slip. I went slapping muffled-like against the wall as the other made a careless noise, voice rough.

"Eh, prob'ly Mar's newest '_fan_," he drawled, voice practically _dripping_ out of his nose.

If the chum looked half as slimy as he sounded, we're dealin' with the half-cousin'a somethin' I yoinked outta my drain last week.

"Yeah, but ain't they supposed to stop at the stadium gates? Swear to gods I've seen him back here!"

"Buddy-boy, Mar's a first class ticket to anywhere in this dump if you fuck him right."

While before tentatively perusing the option of just waiting it out, I completely slammed the breaks on A) trying to sneak out and B) kicking their asses at _that_.

Crouched breathlessly at the curtain, I tried to hear anything past the loud, fat drips spattering off my hair, the wet lump of it smeared all down my back. Soggy.

"Whoa, really? Freaky," the first wheezed, and the other gave a solid grunt, the sizzling, charred smell of a cigar nosing in past my curtains.

"M'yep. That bastard'll fuck anyone that moves, and some that don't. Depends on his moods, which ain't the soundest things in this world, mind you: but his groupies get most of the action 'cos they're easy catches," he grumbled, and I could just see the cigar wedged between his teeth, slurring up his words. "Prob'ly worked through half the stadium by now, the little fucktard."

I stayed hovering by my little crack of light as the thick shadows wavered and got up, the other giving a wary murmur.

"Definitely good advertising."

"Ahn, you don't see me complainin'. So longs he don't miraculously get balls and start in on the chicks, I got nothin' to bitch about. He can have his fun with the pansies. They ain't on my list."

"So… guess that's why he's so big nowadays?"

The hiss of a zipper, the loud clang of a locker, then the silent puff of a cigar.

"You fuck everyone, Grim, everyone likes you. Nothin' to it."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Needless to say, the second those losers hit the road, I was right behind 'em. Bolted as soon as I'd dried myself off with a towel that was _not_ engraved with the yellow ass of its racer cuddle-buddy.

In the end, it was drop-dead amazing how it only took me one whack to find him. Cluing it all in to my instincts, and in riveting, picturesque dramatics, I stormed over to the bar where he was busy getting drunk off his ass. Different bar this time, different one every night, right? I cornered him, ignoring the eyes I got along the way as I slammed my fists down on his table.

"So."

Bit the words, glaring doomsday at him.

He took a sip of his booze.

Tried to say it less huffily than it wanted to come out, but it didn't go over so smooth.

"In our little flight of passion, I guess you forgot to mention the fact that you're a regular little mojo-machine for all your cronies if they want a bit of ass on the high-bar? What, d'you put out on a schedule here? Z'that why you always time how long it takes to get me into the shower--five seconds and not an instant more?! Don't wanna be late to your next ass-ppointment!? Not… that I'm pointin' fingers."

My smile must'a stretched like a screaming idiot on a rack, bones poppin' with every inch.

"Just curious."

He turned and looked at me, completely nonplussed. Even faintly expectant, looming brows never an inch higher or lower than usual. So. _flat_. So flat, actually, that I blew up, stomping up to his stool and slapping my hand on his arm, immediately sticking to the coating of dust with a wet tap.

"_Curious_, as in you've been screwin' everyone from here to Tinsel Town!" I hissed angrily, getting low and in his face, and trying to squeeze his fleshy arm and gettin' nothin', which only pissed me off further. "Knowin' how _you_ like it, you've gotta be shot through with all kinds of creepy-crawlies: and you didn't even take a second to fill me in? What are you, a disease-hippy? Spreadin' the love and all that comes with it?!"

He wasted a perfectly good, infuriated glare on the dredges of his drink, suit squeaking as he shifted, and whipped out a battered sheet of pale blue paper from a pocket, shoving it under my nose.

A pale blue sheet of paper that, even in the wandering buzz of neon, looked very much like an STD test.

"I'm clean."

And he was. Clean as a whistle that's never been blown.

Pinching it from him like a bomb, I moseyed around the paper, surprised he didn't snatch it away once I caught the whole 'no abnormality' thing in clean black letters at the bottom: y'know, in a little I-told-you-so fit. Some guys are like that. But he let me look at it nice and long.

I didn't even notice that the thing was from three years ago. I didn't know then that he kept that one on him 'cos he knew he'd never need another STD test in his life. Maybe he wanted me to catch it. Maybe that's why he didn't twitch it out from under my shnozz after I got the gist, and let me snoop around.

So I stood there, clutchin' tight to that paper as Mar fixed me with the hardest look in the world; that little piece of proof for a _possible_ argument to keep him from screwin' anybody but me disappearing in a bitter little puff of smoke. I knew I didn't have anything. Guess that hadn't changed, and that's a good thing: but that still didn't keep it from buggin' the hell outta me. I mean, _hey_, lettin' my ego go a little here, he shouldn't need _anyone_ but me! I was enough for three guys at once, so why in _hell_ should he be snoopin' around for another booty-call?!

Annnnnd I blurted out a really stupid thing, needing to hear the answer.

"… so, what--you really ain't a slut?"

He was right about to get back to his drink, like it was a done deal, but that reined in the morality leash tight around his neck. Or maybe he was just annoyed. For a split second, he looked it, the flinty emotion glinting off his blue eyes.

Then he almost laughed. But it was way different from the kind you wanted.

"Precursors. You can't be serious." He turned to me with a scathing, condescending--too damn smug--smile hung all on his face, bending real close to my ear. Like the rest of the bar didn't need to hear this, like it was a dirty little secret he was just too damn thrilled to hit me with.

His hand was hard on my shoulder, squeezing.

"Here it is for you, straight and clean: you signed up for the party, Daxter. I never said I'd drive you home afterwards."

Have no idea why that rung my bell the way it did. Still don't, to this day.

I could only stand there, fizzing from my split nerves as his fingers slowly curled around my ear without a hitch, without skipping a _beat_. I can't say what I expected from that filthy mouth, but it stung to hear it: the very definition of a 'booty call' crushed into my gut, acidic as his lips quietly found my jaw, suckling my neck until I eased up and tilted my head away. His hand fluttered along my back, and I just staggered forward like a frikkin' zombie as he pulled me closer, nipping at my ear with a deep breath.

"Want a drink?" He offered huskily into my cheek, racing gloves snagging on my pants as he kneaded my hips bracingly, squeezing my ass.

"Yeah. Sure," I said dully, and took the drink he pressed into my limp hands.

He watched me down it with a hungry little smile on his face, hands always too big, too everywhere. Always on me, always stuffed into that stupid rubber coating; he pulled me into his lap (always loved the feel of his legs) and by the third glass I didn't know what the hell was up or down anymore, 'cos _fuck_ it was strong stuff. I can hold my drinks like a bear, so he 'prob'ly drugged it.

Is that s'posed to make me care? …Nah.

He was still kissing me--tenderly almost, reeking to high heaven of whatever the hell I'd just drained from my glass--so I told the rest of the world to fuck off. The unforgiving edge of the bar dug into my back, slow and clumsy like his hands. He didn't have anything, I didn't have anything, so we could sure as hell fuck till the yakkows came home.

But funnily enough, he did end up driving me home… His home, precisely.

After leading me out by the hand, he practically heaved me onto the spindly pad of his one-seater, strappin' me straight to the cockeyed handlebars like loose, cheap cargo. And that's exactly what I was- limp, broken up, and ready to get so damn loose. Oh, so loose. I was ready to get it hard.

Would'a flashed him a go-light on screwing me right there in the street if he took a fancy to it. Simple PDA is for wimps.

He slid in smoothly behind me and looped his arms around my waist, making me squirm when his legs forced me around the front panel, my ass pressed close into his rubber-slicked thighs with a grudging squeak. Imagined him ridin' me into the handlebars and cracked up, wiggling, but he shut me up with a warning nip at my ear. Didn't stop me from playing with his legs and searching for his zipper as he gunned it, a deep growl from the zoomer tickling my brain.

His 'steady smasher' routine came in handy in the heat-a-night traffic, digging down into the PedZone a few times with a reckless swerve and sending stoner kids scattering like bowling pins. I say we would'a been somebody's wall decoration had it been anyone but Mar, but then… it _couldn't _have been anyone but Mar. Guy motored it like a maniac. Had to clench my eyes shut to snuff out the rickety sickness in my gut, and thanked whatever blurry thing that _had_ to be a god above me that I was still in one piece and upright when we finally screeched into a parking-lot, nearly making casualties out of a line of bushes.

Mar, patient not his middle name. He floored it right up to the front door, not a flinch. Pushed and heaved through the whole night, not a moment or breath to lose. Mar Haggai, regardless of his middle name, did not like losing.

He also didn't play nice when it looked like he would lose, as I found out.


	4. THREE

A/N: Everybody in the fandom say, "Hi, Keira!"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

THREE

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Woke up the next afternoon high and dry, caked with the smell of rank booze. Peachy.

I groaned and rolled over, cramming my head further into the pillow and feeling it throb in an instant, catty little reminder that no one alive should have chugged that much alcohol and expected to skip out of bed. Hallelujah enough that it was a dark afternoon, sure-- Mar's room was shuttered so tight you couldn't poke a hairpin between the shades, so I swilled the thought around my extremely hung-over head as to what woke me up, then saw the big guy himself bent over a dresser, scrounging out a shirt. I struggled up from the covers and lazily perused his tightly-wrapped legs-- something I could do from bed and still feel accomplished—'cos hell if an errant twitch wasn't going to start a time-bomb in my skull.

"N'hey… gergus. 'Sup?" I yawned, clenching my eyes shut. Damn, there was the ache already.

He looked around and gave me a nod, hair all poked up funny, then went right back to clothes-scavenging. My mind pulled a blank at the lack of my good-morning smoochies, then remembered I wasn't exactly bunkin' with Prince Charming (more like one-minute Willie)- so shrugged and rolled over, stretching gingerly. Thinkin' everything was good, and wigglin' out that tingle in my ass that always told me it'd been a good night when my brain couldn't put it into so many words.

Then, somebody committed an act that was to determine that day a living hell. Somebody knocked: and you'da thought a bomb had just been called in.

Mar snapped to face the door, literally leapt across to the bed, yanked me out from the sheets with all the grace of a trash man, and _shoved me under the bed_. I mean, holy shit! My head was all stars for a second, hard and bright and singeing _my eyeballs_, and I bit back a betrayed wail as he must've fussed around on the bed, clearing his throat.

"Alright."

First words of the day, and they ain't even to the guy he pounded last night. Lovely. Remind me why I'm still here? Or came in the first place, for that matter?

The door creaked hesitantly and someone walked in. By that time I'd nudged myself far enough under the bed that I could see out the other side, nosing the bedskirt out of my squinting eyes-- and met with disgustingly cute bunny slippers. Who the hell was this? I was in too much pain and dumb _shock_ to feel suspicious, so I just lay there in all my glory, probably drooling as the hangover started gnashing its teeth behind my eyes.

"Good morning, Mar," said the Obvious Girl.

Sweet voice, a _little_ too perky for my liking. Thank the gods she was whispering. Maybe it was a learned act: I mean, how many times'd Mar woken up raging with a hangover headache? Just wonder how many cute little boys that came along with said hangover-package had actually been there whenever she made her morning inspections. With so much stuff that _he_ hid under the bed, she probably thought he was as straight as a two-by-four.

"Hope I didn't wake you up?" She tried gently, little bunny slippers flapping as she crossed the room, laying something down. Nice legs. A little sister or a maid or somethin'? With as much as he likes to be _served _I wouldn't put it past him. Ass.

Mar gave a dismissing noise, juggling the bed a little. Maybe to remind me to stop breathing so loudly, or living so loudly. 'Cos y'know, I can do that. Right after he manually _heaved_ me from the bed without a word of hello, tossed me under and into the most painful hangover of my _life_ where I am now currently biting back howls and groans that a laboring mother would croak at… I can _so_ totally do that.

Bastard. Ass. …. Ass-bastard. Something.

…'Scuze my pissy attitude, folks. Guess I'm not a morning-under-the-bed person. And I'd run far, far away from anyone who is, mind.

There was a dawdling moment of silence, like the girl was waiting for something: it was the audio equivalent of a tapping foot, but hesitant. Like everything else. Hey, I can understand Mar's the goliath of our age, but really? The wilting shyness was way out of bounds. I could almost _hear_ her biting her lip.

But it was so practiced it was kinda creepy. Like… routine.

"Daddy… said he saw you with a little redhead last night," she breathed it, turning to look at him. (Alright, at least she knew of his preferences—or rather, hormonal spasms). "Is that the same one who's been hanging around the racing track lately? He's cute." She added warmly, but it was like an offer. A reason to talk, or _something_. Said lightly, like her opinion didn't matter.

And, of course, I was fully expecting something flattering. Only fitting of me! I perked up my ear for the ravishing _gushings_ of my superiority, of my wit and grace and charm, of my prowess in bed! … Alright, maybe barring that, but if peeping toms are genetic, maybe she'd get a kick out of it. I don't even want to _think_ of when 'Daddy' saw us, or _what_ he saw. Ick.

I wiggled smugly, waiting for my extolling to begin, and met with the very thing Mar was. An understatement.

"He's gone," he rasped. "Left an hour ago."

Ohmygod. Hello _cruelty_. I got shafted! If my head didn't hurt so much, I'd bite his ankle. This is beyond betrayal. … He didn't even agree with her! I _am_ cute, at the pathetically understated least! Precursors, I'm dealing with the scrooge of recognition here. And from all her former kowtowing, I thought she was just gonna go along with it: say, oh, no, not cute at all and Mar, you have no reason to let such an ugly boy stay over when you obviously _aren't fit to shine his shoes._

But then, something new happened. Someone backed me. Someone I didn't even know.

"Oh. I get it."

Her sweet little voice hardened, razor edge hissing behind it. This was not a woman to screw with, and _gods_ did the change come on fast. I could almost see her bunnies shaking in suppressed rage.

"It was a fling. Another hit and run. Sex, then the door."

I had no idea if this subject was a common one or not. All I know is that I am _not_ tender at bawdy conversations, but this one was already curling my toes. Maybe a peeping Tom gene did run in the family? Or was this girl a past-squeeze of Mar's? Oy, this could get so awkward.

"How long are you going to keep him around for? A day—a week? Until he gets too used to the celebrity sheen of you, or sick of sneaking around?"

"None of your business," Mar bit right back, quiet and indecently scornful— just daring her to keep after it. Bet you his lip was curled flat to his teeth—but so was mine, in a kind of dirty resentment. I still hated hearing graphic details about the flock of one-nighters Mar had always taken in, call me silly and oversensitive. But he was daring her, and I expected her to hook into his hateful offer and start screaming at him, but she stopped.

"For Precursor's sake, Mar," she sighed, but it only drained half the ire out of her voice. She was still rigid as a pole, and pleading with him, but stabbing him all the same. "Why don't you actually find someone? You know… someone who's interested in a relationship, not just a one-night stand?"

"Keira," he said slowly, warning her.

Ah. His live-in sister. The grease-monkey. Nice. I'm nosing in on a family bickering. About sex.

…These people really are twisted, aren't they? I feel the need to go home and rearrange my sock-drawer.

She must've thrown something down, and her bunnies flapped around to face Mar again.

"Mar, I've lost count of the number of times you've brought home one of your drooling little lackies and screwed them senseless, ending it by practically kicking them out on the street," she hissed, fists clenching just below the bedskirt. "And truth, I'm sick of it!"

"Keira, this isn't--"

"No! What you're doing is cruel." She shut him up, quick and sharp, and got ready to chew him out like I only thought a momma could do. "Just because you have a little flare on the racetrack does _not_ mean you have the right to play with peoples heads and bodies. Winning doesn't mean you're the exception to the rule! I didn't want to talk to Daddy about this because he hardly knows what you _do_ anymore—"

"And you care?!" Mar forced in, but the little hellion sis nearly shrieked at him to shut the hell up, shut up _now_ and listen to her!

Yeek. As if the decibels weren't enough… I ain't lyin': every time I hear a chick take that tone, I go defensively limp. My mom was one'a them she-animals: she could flay you alive with just her voice, then douse you with salt without blinking an eye. Keira was breathing heavy, and I could feel Mar rigid and hateful above me.

"Shut up. Shut-- Mar, we've had enough of this. Daddy and I both. We practically have to hold you at gunpoint to get you to _talk_ to us, and if you're going to keep on this little 'casualty of love and fame' spree, you're going to have to do it somewhere else."

She stalked across the room, slamming the bunbuns into unconsciousness on the carpet, and paused. I could just see her angry green eyes, festering like the glowing poison apple in a kid's book.

"Rent a room, I don't care--I just can't stand to see another kid wake up alone in your filthy bed."

The door slammed. Loud.

I totally waited for Mar to hit something. He was trembling with anger, the air _smelled_ like violence. He was sucking in breath like he'd gotten socked in the gut, and I nearly shivered, just listening to him rein himself in.

Then silence. But real, real uneasy silence. I knew he wasn't gonna tell me when I could come out, so I slowly crawled behind him, carefully cradling my aching head between my hands. He didn't turn around to look at me.

Didn't know whether I had permission to leave or not. Call it sick, but that was the fact of it. Didn't know what he'd do if I violated that law. I bit my lip.

"I… take it I wasn't s'posed to hear that," I said weakly, chuckle sputtering and dying quicker'n my second-hand excuse for a ride.

"If you want to go, do it," he growled instantly, taking a stab at me. "I don't care. I've already had my fun: thanks for the fuck."

I just looked at him.

"Bitch…" he muttered after a second, clasping his fingers around his nose, then rubbing his temples stiffly. Searching different ways of making pain go away and working them all restlessly, with a solid wall of anger in his eyes.

I have no idea what I was thinking. I could've agreed with him, done my subservient 'pounded-senseless lackey' duty and been gone-gone-gone. Out the door and fifteen miles away, knowing that this guy was just a little too twisted for my plain vanilla schedule. Knowing there was no way in hell this could end well. Knowing he was gonna seriously hurt me one day, and there was nothing I could do about it if I stayed.

Knowing one of us was gonna be dead before anything good happened.

But somehow, someway, my shoulders shrugged and the bed rustled as I sat back on it. I didn't dare touch him, because the air still smelt like human gunpowder, and any touch could spark it off, but it was enough that our shoulders brushed. Then I grinned, lopsided and wrong.

"No, ah… no worries here. Nope. Water off a ducks back! The fam don't gotta love me, they just have to cough up a key, y'know? You've got one easy roller here, babe. Easiest you'll get."

And he just looked at me.

Looked, got up, and finished getting dressed. Ten minutes later I was outside with a long walk ahead of me.

Real Prince Charming, right there.


	5. FOUR

A/N: Pissed off slummer Daxter with his pocket knife and acidic wit makes me laugh so, so, so hard! Enjoy!

And… watch for the snippet of game-dialogue and irony XD I have way too much twisted fun with this.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

FOUR

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I was starting to get a bit loopy from all the nights out (the guy really was a spook: never saw him _once_ in the light'a day) and my barkeep gig was starting to go a little downhill in my boss's books. Chock it up to the fact I kept catchin' Z's in whatever the last customer ordered, yannoe? I considered part-timing it as a grease-monkey so I could catch Mar easier, and wouldn't get so dogged by my sex-insomnia after I finally dragged myself home, but X-ed it due to the first part of the word-- _grease_.

As a rule, I hate bein' wet, and I hate bein' dirty. With the exception of mental dirtiness, such as the slightest bit of kink for flair, I will _never_ let my stunning bod get grimed up in _any_ way. It's just not worth it!

But after a while, it got easier. More casual: there was less forcible showering, and more hopeful glances. I nearly flipped when, just after a roll, he slipped his hand from his zipper and into his pocket, scrounging out a crisp scrap of paper: he pressed it into my hand. No questions asked.

"You've been there."

I was wonderin' if he'd made a map to the best parts of his studly anatomy, but nixed it due to two facts-- the way he was lookin' at me, and the fact that I could write a scientific study on just about every inch of the guy (and boy-oh-boy, inches did he have aplenty!).

Mar didn't shove me into the shower that time, for which I suddenly thanked my lucky stars—'cos the pounding water would've destroyed the scrawl, penned in dirty blue. An address.

"I'm up a few hours before the races. Don't come earlier."

My head popped up, sporting the effing _biggest_ grin in the world, but by then he was already through the double doors.

I was pretty damn surprised he'd let me in after his little wrench-wench stuffed that bitchy fit down his throat--but hey! The more my life goes on, I've come to the pretty conclusion that the laws of gravity don't apply to yours truly. I was a free bird! So it gave me a perfect excuse to just wander my way over there, trying to remember any scrap of the route from our drunken brawl/hostage of love situation a few weeks ago (and the hung-over walk back home). Somethin' out of a dirty romance novel, that one was. Couldn't hop my ride either, 'cos the damn thing was in the shop. _Again_.

I swear, the greasers who work that place look surprised when I take it _out_ of the shop, and a little sad to see it go—like they're losin' a (permanently crippled) friend or some crap. Well, if that's so, it's more a friend to them than it's ever been to me… Piece'a junk.

It was just turnin' night, with the sun giving up the ghost over the smoggy city-line, air coolin' a bit. Got up to a creepy deja-vu factor door (I'm _thinkin'_ it had real pretty color-swirls around it last time I laid eyes on it…) in a set of sprawling, whitewashed apartments, feeling like a door-to-door salesman as I thumbed the doorbell.

I let my most lecherous grin snuggle into place as the door cracked, and one shadowed blue eye was boxed in by white, peeking through the gap. I wiggled my fingers at him, flinging my hip against the rail-bar.

"Hey there, big guy! Did someone order room-service?"

I jumped like someone'd shot me in the ass as the door swung shut, nearly lopping my shnozz off.

"Ex--cuse me!" I shrieked, fists balling. Oh gods, hell hath no fury like a button nose endangered and a queen scorned! I was gonna kill that bastard!

"What the hell?!"

"You're too early," he growled. His voice rumbled through the door, thick, annoyed and cold.

"I came all the way across town, you loser—if I can wait out here, I can damn well wait in there! Don't pull that card on me!"

"You didn't listen," he snarled, hands impacting either side of the doorway on his side.

"Take a fucking chill pill and lemme in!"

The only sound was him walking away, the dull scruff of his feet muffled behind the door. Okay, that just did it. I slammed my palms into the doorframe, smashing my face close as I could to the crack.

"Y'know, Mar, old buddy, I dunno if anyone's ever had the balls to say this to your face, or your DOOR, but you are in _painful_ need of a twelve-step in social skills, you frickin' wraith! Open up! Fucker!"

I lost my ever-steely nerve before I trashed the door with my pocket knife, mainly because a teeny old lady who'd come out to pluck up her peepee-ing Puppy-Wuggums in her very quaint whitewashed apartment garden was staring at me like I was contagious. Seeing as I reek of the slums, lucky me, I could probably set a plague on her just by looks, of course. I settled for sitting against the door and not killing something small and defenseless, 'cos my bone wasn't pickable with old ladies.

Puppy-Wuggums, however, was very, very lucky he went inside. Kept my hand on my knife in case he decided he wasn't quite finished peepeeing.

An hour later Mar yanked the door open with a grueling look across his prickly mug, hair in shambles—like the whole episode of letting me in was just _far_ too much work-- and I was right there to say a stiff, completely pissy hello. Topped it off with a tart pass at how ugly he was. Looked like he tumbled out of a meat-grinder anyways. I don't lie.

Like hell I was gonna let it slip that it'd taken me an hour to get over here by foot since Oldie was rotting in the shop! He gave me this real suspicious look, face darkening, but let me in past him. Not even a mildly surprised "You crazy child, you're _still_ here?"

Then I learned that apparently Mar's a 24-hour service call—pre-race, post-race, post-pre-race-insult, it didn't matter. The boy had an itch, and I was on schedule to scratch. Don't mind that part so much, I tell you, 'cos damn… to this day, no words to do it service. Even, right down to it… I didn't mind the freak-stuff.

Or really, I was so drunk on his body that I didn't care as much as I should've. And with the off-key seconds of fear and pain mixed into that asphyxiating liquor, now I know: I really, really should'a cared. Really.

Should'a stopped it when I had the chance.

I started heading over there every so often (on non-race days, _at_ the scheduled time) just to hang out. He didn't say I couldn't, so of course that gave me an instant open door! Told you I had him under my thumb.

The good times, they are a-rollin'!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I tumbled smoothly over his spiffy couch, chocolate bar wedged between my teeth. I gnawed it carefully as I bounced. The apartment was pretty much like I'd remembered it: lived in but not homey. Clean. Real clean. Not preserved, like a psycho-maid would have it, just… clean 'cos it was ignored. It was used, but only just… like Mar wasn't too perfect a human to be dirty: he just wasn't human enough.

Hell if I knew where the old fart and the greasemonkey _really_ lived, 'cos they never showed themselves while Mar was there. Knowing Mar, he'd probably exiled them to a dirty cardboard box on the other side of town. Bastard (which I say adoringly).

Mar was zoned out on the other end of the couch while smoking something—I'd watched him hand-roll it with exacting care, but found the greasy-looking vegetable matter uninteresting besides that--eyes wandering backwards every so often in a lazy little roll. I was all bundled up against the armrest, so I flicked him on the leg, stirring his attention like through sludge. I held out a chunk of chocolate with an appealing sound. Cos, y'know, I wouldn't normally share, but it was an aphrodisiac. Yknow, thing that made you wanna get heavy, and he hadn't laid one finger on me the entire time. I was kinda startin' to think he was comin' down with something anyways—he didn't look too good.

I frowned sharply as he gave a ghostly shake of his head, waving me off and easing his smoke back between his lips.

"Do you _eat_?" I bristled, arching an incredulous eyebrow. I wasn't used to having my treats, or any part of me, refused. He gave one of his tolerant, microscopic little smiles, tilting his head towards me.

"Not much," he said, voice webbed over by whatever the heck he was sucking in through that potent-looking little roll. He turned back to it, fitting it to his mouth and taking a deep breath. I watched him closely, popping a scrap of chocolate into my mouth.

"Whats'at?"

When his droopy eyes creaked open, I pointed at the smoke. He shrugged, a brief, stiff role of his shoulders as his eyes wandered off again. In la-la land.

"Fix."

Knowing the kinda stuff _this_ guy stuck his slightly large shnozz into, it had to be pretty hard. Like, burn-hair-outta-nose hard, and watchin' him gulp it in like it was the elixir of life made me even more curious.

"Ah… got a hit for me?" I tried jauntily, hoping to get a drag off of him while he was still stiff on it. Not even rousing from his foggy stare, he leaned his tussled head back on the couch.

"No."

I growled in my nose, wrinkling it in annoyance.

"Need a little push for that giant _stick_ up your ass?" I grumbled, shooting him a nasty glare. Did I mention my allergy of refusal?

He didn't rise up at that, but shrugged himself down into the cushions all gooey-easy.

"It'd 'probly kill you," he said softly, tracing the tangle of smoke up to the ceiling with his eyes. I balked, rising up.

"_C'mon_ sweets, I ain't made'a glass-"

"Literally."

His eyes snagged me for the first time that day, and I felt that elastic tremble snapping and twanging in my chest. His face was blank but his intense, huge fingers curled carelessly around the tiny roll as he slipped it from his lips. His dark, hazy breath escaped in its wake. He blew it toward me with a tired, mean look in his eye, and I caught a whiff of something that probably scorched the inside of my nose as clean as a baby's behind. I choked, nearly dropping my candy.

"What's… what is it?" I coughed, fingers batting at my lip. Already it felt like my eyes were gummed shut, just from gettin' a face full of it. He paused, like he was thinking it over. I could hear the cogs clicking in his head, and oh, how slow they went.

"Eco root," he finally said, voice a low, wandering murmur just like his eyes. My brows jumped up a few stories, mouth popping open like a cash register slot. _Now_ I knew this guy had connections beyond a regular Joe.

"Eco-root! Thought that stuff dropped outta the food-chain, like, a million years ago!"

He shook his head silently, shrapnel scratches hard across his eyes in the florescent light, like inch-long stitches holding 'em shut. The guy was a regular jigsaw of skin grafts and scars. Been in the racing biz a long time.

"Not here. Used to come from the forest. Eco-saturation. Now it just happens another way."

"And you've got some."

He nodded again, and a silence grabbed us and wouldn't let go. Finally, I fidgeted.

"Clue me in a little?" I worried haltingly at my hair, mouth twisting as he glanced back at me, eyes at a loss. "The buzz? I mean, you gotta hit up for some kinda plus. Ain't any good without the tingle, right?"

I just sat there and waited, watching as he temporarily checked out and went on call-waiting again. Then his eyes eased from their calculating slits, and he patted the cushion next to him, throwing me a look.

Instantly animated, I scrambled over, doughy couch sucking at my knees. I finally landed across his legs, hands cupped over his knees, thinkin' he was gonna give me a drag. He looked off, teased the smoke over his mouth before taking a huge drag himself, scarred neck straining; his eyes twitched. He held it for a second and it was like I could see it working through his body like a purple bubble in his blood.

He let it go, then sunk into the cushions towards me, palm curling around my jaw so carefully that it sent me for a loop, guiding me in. It felt like somethin', some kinda static was draped over his lips as he brushed them over mine, damp breath slipping into my mouth to save my lungs 'cos they were suddenly pulling blanks, paralyzed.

I felt my eyes flutter shut as I leant in and Mar eased me into a teasing kiss, tantalizing as he carefully, deliciously pressed into my lips, mouth parted from the vulnerable first. A halting moan stole my throat as his tongue slid along my mouth, dipping in until we locked, sudden and airless.

Fuck, it wasn't even… even a kiss but a kind of sex, just with hot mouths instead of hot bodies and a drug lacing every liquid. His hand was warm and rough, cradling my jaw like he touched my thighs whenever he spread them, only gentle times a million, and I drifted forward, _gods_, wanting some sort of bodily absorption, some kind of sex-- before that same, purple-tasting spark shot straight onto my tongue and scalded me to hell. Pain and hard coldness spewed down my throat like black ice. The feeling pooled in my temples and I yelped and fell back, brain buzzing and hair sizzling at the tips. I gaped at him, hands suddenly crammed up onto my lips, fingertips searching for some oozing welt.

"A… ah _man,_ that stung!" I finally hissed, watching his lazy, disturbingly placid eyes settle as a small, hard smile tugged at his cheek.

"That's the buzz."

"Jeez…" I whined, waggling my jaw, which'd started to ache. I couldn't believe this guy! "And… that's your regular hit?"

"Mhm."

"Fun. Real fun. You're some kind'a crazy, big guy," I muttered, shooting him a _look_. "What do you get from it besides third-degree welts on your tongue? 'Cos call me crazy, but that don't seem like a way to spend an evening, unless you get off on the taste of burn cream."

"Protection."

Maybe I wasn't too far on the whole 'elixir of life' thing. Mar had barreled through a dozen accidents that would've killed anyone else, yet here he was.

"Yes?" I drawled after a second, waiting.

His eyes rolled over to me, that same lazy-yet stiff smirk hung on his face. Almost bitter.

"Wonder how I can hook up with so many people and not have a dozen diseases?" He shook his head, almost to himself, and I still hated how he talked about going around and practically fucking the city like it was yesterdays news, _just_ after I'd gotten my ass in such a bundle about it. But he was off in his own world—the hell what I thought.

He sunk in along the cushions, closing his eyes.

"I can't catch anything."

"Hooray, Mr. Incredible," I snorted immediately, rolling my eyes. "Ring me up and say that again when you're hooked up to an O2 tube and wizzin' into a bag."

"No. I'm physically incapable of catching anything. Believe me, I've almost... tried."

A suddenly lost, wavering look spread through his eyes, like fire that burns something precious far, far too fast.

"This… this whole thing, I've been doing it for four years. Haven't gotten sick since I was a kid. No matter what you've got, what anybody's got, this stuff just… burns it outta me."

He suddenly tensed, the liquid uncertainty in his eyes turning to sluggish oil, simmering. He pinned the smoking roll with that same look as he ground it to ash in a dish.

"Sometimes it feels like I just can't die," he said quietly.

I shivered good and long. Believe me, I did. Death was no stranger to this guy, and no one should ever, ever talk about it that way. Like he did. Curiously. Resentfully, like a bad house guest. It took me a few gulps to start talking again.

"That… sounds like some pretty wacky shit. Why doncha lay off for a while, take a breather?"

"Quitting isn't an option," he told me, smiling that same tight, bitter smile.

"What, they don't carry 'Ecotine' patches at your local corner store?" I asked, half-mocking him outta pure nerves. 'Cos we were talkin' about a grade-A druggie here. No casual user, no recreational drugs. Mar hit it hard, but he didn't seem to get what I said. He slid out a regular smoke and lit it up with stiff fingers before answering.

"I need it."

And the regular, blessed smoke was all over the place, a sterile grey cutting into the weird indigo-black of the eco-root. I watched it, snorting. I don't think I could feel my legs by that point. The nerves, just… the nerves. Everything seemed fried, and I'd just gotten an aftertaste, just a whiff—fuck, I didn't know what to think.

What _do_ you think, in a situation like that?

"Man, have they got you sold on this stuff," I clucked, shaking my head. "Superman! Psych-effects, you're tellin' me."

Mar sat up, short and hard, and looked me straight in the eye. His hackles shot up. Every vein suddenly jumped to attention in all of the ripped places of his body, straining out against his tortured skin.

"Listen, do you want to fuck or not?" He snapped through his white teeth. He flicked his cigarette toward me, heat flaring briefly on my lap as the ash hit. "Shut up until I finish if you don't want to be kicked out."

And as he finished off his regular smoke, an aroma I knew like the back of my hand, he gave me this _look_. Now, as Mar is a guy of _very_ few words, as stated before, I've learned to wise-up and puzzle through the hefty majority of what he _doesn't_ say, maybe fudging a bit on the positive side when the general gist is battin' between 'Come have wild slam-bam sex with me' or 'Lay on the tracks so I can run you over'. But this time, it was as clear as crystal.

That look, that stiff, cold, arrested look screamed one thing: 'Don't think you know a fucking thing about me.'

And I realized, hey. I didn't.

And the ratio of being okay with that and _not_ being okay with that was sinkin' like the titanic.


	6. FIVE

A/N: Oh, how crude is Daxter? Very crude. (Just sit back and thank god you're not this tactless, kay? Enjoy the crude.)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

FIVE

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I got kicked outta work last night.

Okay, I got talked out of poisoning some girl's beer 'cos she wouldn't shut up about something her little school was planning, a kind of a sponsor thing to get a date with _Mar_—I would'a laughed in her face if I hadn't been so damn tired. And pissed. I been a little touchy lately, a little bitter when I hear his stupid, screwed-up name, and not feelin' so hot. I kinda feel like Mar looked last time we hooked up, y'know? Not so much with the pretty. Decided I'd take the day off to go and get myself checked over, since it's flu season and all… just to cover my bases.

Okay, and yeah, I was still suspicious. Mar looked bad, now I look bad. Point in case? Call me crazy, but I don't believe that whole 'my drug stops venereal diseases!' crap. 'Cos if it did… man, they'd be selling that dark eco stuff everywhere.

Thus, I thought Mar'd passed me a lovebug. A frikkin' determined lovebug. So--here I am. Doc in the box: just enough to give it to me straight.

…Cos y'know. Gods know I have a profound lack of straightness in my life. Heh.

Anyways, onto the visit. Y'see, I'm the one the neighbors make a fuss over, 'cos you find me any second of the day and I don't have a thread on. Bein' naked floats my boat, and from what I know about my looks, it'll do anything but sink yours! It just gives me that… wild feel, y'know? That animalistic, in the buff… Grrr. Ooh, I'm gettin' pumped just talkin' about it.

Kinda wish I were an animal sometimes. Then clothes wouldn't even be an issue.

But now, in my little tissue paper, floral-print _dress_ with my _ass_ hanging out… well. Let's just say it's not the best situation to be in.

"You have some… interesting results," Doc began, scanning over my tests again.

"Trouble down under?" I offered casually, like I knew what was coming.

Geekus almost blushed when I said it. And I thought docs were supposed to be the adults!

"No, nothing like that."

Had to stop my eyebrow from ricocheting into my hairline.

"You…" He struggled with the word, or the phrase, or the _language_, but finally wrenched it out: "Quite bluntly, you're contaminated."

… Okay, Dax equals 'not so good with the geek-speak', but that didn't exactly sound liable to add a plus to my love-life.

Hey, I'm Ken!

Well, hey, I'm Contaminated! Nice to meet you! … Ken?

Shiiiiit.

"Details, pretty please," I muttered out of my hand, where my head had conveniently and despondently fallen. Geekus flipped through his color-coded charts, making an orderly scraping sound.

"I don't know how you managed it in such minimal doses, but you have some definite dark eco radiation."

Ah. Mar and my little 'conversation' from yesterday rose in my mind. Darkroot, right? Smoked it all the time-- the stuff was pickled in dark eco to boot. Guess he did gimme a lovebug. Just… one infinitely more prone to causing cancer. And with all our 'exploits', anything that's inside him is inside me. Not that I have any issues with that-- I was always one to call bottom bunk. I just gotta shiver… that stuff is radio-active!? Ewwww. (You'd think he'd glow in the dark as a warning or something! _Hi. I'm fluorescent: DON'T SCREW ME!)_

Little lab boy still seemed caught up on my radiation issue in general, and mused on, thumbing his chin.

"The frequency of radiation, which is what makes it so potent… Dark Eco has some of the highest known to science. Even a minute of direct exposure will cause a traceable effect on the subject, and large amounts will quickly damage your skin, then your innards. Sooner or later your cells start to warp--"

"Cut the lab chatter and gimme it straight."

All of his talk was making me sick. Which should've been convenient considering where I was, but no. Geekus took the hint and waved his hands, placating pissy little me.

"It's fiddling with your body. Nothing serious, with your amount of exposure… but you definitely have some notable dark eco radiation." He stopped to think. "Have you been easily agitated lately?"

I kinda got pissed that he'd ask that, ironically. But yeah, it was true.

"Yeah?" I returned tartly.

"As I thought," he said guilelessly—just content to be right for my sake. I deflated, quirking a brow. "Eco-- that's what's causing your symptoms."

"So… no cold?"

"Nothing even close to influenza. Eco is such a domineering substance, it'd be a freak accident if you caught anything in this state. It eradicates everything else, even a flu strain."

I stayed quiet for a bit, biting my lip. Thinking, thinking, thinking--then talking.

"Any reason they don't use it for some kinda treatment?" I asked as casually as I could.  
"For cancer and stuff?"

I'm not curious often (I know most'a this stuff already), but when I am I gotta say somethin'. Geekus looked surprised that I had asked, but bumbled on after a second.

"Well… researchers thought about using it for terminal illnesses, but it turned out the effects of long-term radiation are… less than pleasant. Something no one would want to live through, even if it saved their life."

The doctor was quiet, wistful.

But my eyes were stuck on the floor, seeing Mar inhale the acid root like the elixir of life again and again. The black smoke turned into tar and stuck on his body and boiled, emitting purple smears and sparks, but he just closed his eyes and lay back--

"Anyways. What you're feeling right now is just the effects of the eco." He popped his pen back into his cute little color-coded clipboard, nodding. "It'll go away soon enough if you stop exposing yourself to the source."

Shit. Didn't quite know how to swallow that one. Or how to _stop_ swallowing somethin' else that was probably liquid eco radiation. High in radiation, low in carbs! Gives you cancer in no time!

I really should'a signed a bodily harm contract when I hooked up with this freak. Should be gettin' paid through the nose for this.

"M'kay. Thanks, doc," I said automatically, gnawing on my nails and fidgeting with my little floral ass-dress.

"Just… try and stay away from alcohol, alright?"

I looked up, seriously caught off guard.

"Booze? Why?"

Thought this might be a teensy bit of a problem, me being a bartender and all, y'know? S'not like I deal with the stuff every _day_, or throw a few back _nightly_ for a wind-down! But of course, he had a reason for everything.

"Draft beers contain a certain… well, a kind of sugar. Since the chemical bonds are a little weaker, and are designed to be broken down for energy, it's one that morphs easily to feed the effects of the dark eco radiation: so if you're a habitual drinker, it'll just prolong the time that it takes to clean your system. If you want to get over this quickly, don't drink. If you don't care… well, beer doesn't make it stronger, just makes it last longer."

I could'a switched a few words to come up with an erectile-enhancement ad, but just stayed quiet.

Mar and his post-race binges. Drank like a sailor every night. Religiously.

"Anyways, just… get well. I can't prescribe anything to you, and you don't seem to have any insurance. Just stay in bed if you can."

Yeah. Yeah, I could do that. Miriam says I'm useless enough already, screeching and glaring and poisoning drinks like I am. I could stand a little bed-rest.

Problem sat with whose bed I'd be in.


	7. SIX

A/N: Noooo. AUUGGGGGGH. This chapter freaks me out ;o; I'm really sorry to be so mean to Dax. Honest. This should be rated, like, mature plusplusplusplusxxxxx, and then a little angry face at the end.

IMSORRY. Jak isn't really evil. Really.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

SIX

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Days went on: Doc's advice on nixing booze kept me a bit cheerier in the daytime, and a bit less horrified for my life in the darkness, 'cos Mar's pad was still my second (nocturnal) home. Dark Eco radiation or none, it wasn't somethin' you could easily float away from, y'know? I'd find a way to deal with turning into an eco-fueled, pissy purple people eater, I thought. Maybe that way I'd be a match for the guy, huh?

But, okay: so, one of the downsides of practically moving in with someone? My stuff migrated there, and tended to stick. I was always leavin' one thing or another on Mar's bed, or under it (Precursors, that night was weirder than most…), or whatever, so I had to trudge back to get it more often than not. Loveable bastard sure wouldn't bring it to me, and like hell I'd let him inside my rat-motel of a pad. Ugh.

This could also be used as an excuse to drop by his house, or so I've learned. I mean, hey, I was entitled enough as it was, I didn't think I needed an excuse, but…

God almighty, I wish I'd just left it. Wish I'd just waited 'till another freakin' time.

I was already through the front door at our usual time, peeking around for any sign of the live-ins, when a shriek sounded through a closed door to my right. A shriek.

I nearly popped clean out of my skin at that, more so when it was answered by a roar. Wild fantasies of the Spargian zoo breaking out of the room and trampling me flat retreated in seconds, and fear didn't stop me from inching closer once I figured out the sounds were very, very human. Damn me, I've never been able to resist watching any kind of fight, and I approached the door with a pounding heart, moving until the almighty uproar segued into actual words--

"-can't blame him for it, Mar!"

"Shut up!"

"_You can't blame him for it_!"

I almost sighed. It was just him and his little sister. They were at it again, tossing verbal daggers back and forth. My ear touched the door.

It was none of my business, I knew that, but maybe it was just like gaping at a train wreck. You just couldn't stop. Maybe it was 'cos, even as the more I learned, the less I liked… I had to know. About him. Anything.

"Are you fucking out of your mind?! I can blame him for _everything_!" The voice of Mar lashed out, dark and vicious, instantly freezing the blood in my wrists. "My father died because of him!"

"_Daddy didn't crash the buggy_!"

"He should've been there to do it in person! You know it; you _know_ it! He sent my father out on a crackpot run to get something that didn't even _exist_, and he never made it back. My father _trusted_ him, and all he got for it was his death--"

"Mar, we've… we've been over this so many times!" Keira's voice gave a hysterical waver, but then hardened with poison and conviction, with what she knew to be a stab in the dark. "Daddy took you in. It was… an apology, to say sorry, he was so sorry but he didn't _have_ to--"

"He took me in!? To do what? Ruin what life I had left?!" Mar demanded, now screaming at her. I knew he was clenching something, trying not to _hit_ her. "Shut up! Your father used me, just like he used Dad!"

She stopped. Stuttered. Oh god, the lull, the nauseating, guilty pause--

"E... eco is his life, and… you _know_ you showed the biggest reaction to it he'd seen in a long time; he didn't mean it to go that far! He just wanted a little bit of information, just a little, he didn't… want it to turn into a--"

"Into what!? An _addiction_? Where… where I can't fucking put one foot in front of the other without hitting up on a solid kil of Darkroot before going out? Where it hurts so bad when I don't shoot up, it feels like my skull is ripping apart?! Where… where I can't even go out in the daytime anymore, 'cos the sunlight'd burn my fucking eyes out!? A vampire, a _freak_?!" He heaved a breath, drew back and screamed again—"This is what he turned me into, Keira, this is what I _am_!"

I'd frozen. Just… stopped, palms flat against the door, listening to that howl come ripping out of him. Keira cried out to stop him from… hating, from wanting to kill, but it wasn't going to work.

He was in too much pain.

"_He didn't mean it that way_. Daddy didn't do the worst of it! He tried to get you out of there, before they could… make it worse! He tried, but we just didn't have the money, you _know_ that! We talked to the council and everything! We _tried_!"

I could almost hear their heartbeats in the silence. There wasn't a sound—not a stir—until Keira stuttered, subdued and pleading.

"I… I mean it, Jak. Daddy loves you."

"Don't call me by that name," he snapped back, so quickly, so _lethally_ it made the hair stand up along my arms. He stopped, as he so often did, then snarled it without mercy: "Don't you _dare_ call me that, you bitch!"

She wasn't really listening. She just said, achingly quiet:

"I love you, Jak. Daddy loves you too." She paused, and a malaise seemed to waft from it: a flinty, masochistic sting as she waited for him to take the bait. "I'm sorry we ruined your life."

"Get out."

I could feel her wide eyes. But he slapped her with his voice again, mercilessly.

"Get out. Now."

She took a few steps, then ran. Ran out and out somewhere back in the room, slamming the door behind her. No more sounds. I soaked it in with a hollow feeling, completely forgetting where I was, only thinking silence meant safety. Until I realized with a horrible cold start that, after that savage episode, I didn't know where Mar _was_, and that was a dangerously important thing to know right then—and just as I thought it, Mar ripped open the door.

"Holy-!"

I practically flipped away, slamming into the opposite wall, but his fist snaked out to grab the neck of my shirt, yanking hard. I gave a breathy gasp, and was jerked up face to face with Mar's livid blue eyes.

What are you doing here, why were you listening, the questions went on and on-- everything he could throw at me that I was incapable of answering without a helpless shrug. Shrugs wouldn't satisfy this guy! I shouldn't have listened; I know that! Just lemme go, for the love of god!

I shook silently, waiting for him to slam down on me, to hurt me _somehow_, but he just snorted real softly, eyes burning into me.

"How long have you been there?" He demanded, giving me a little rattle-- like I wouldn't fess up! I wiggled in his grip, trying to look like he wasn't choking me as much as he actually was.

"U-uh, like, just now!" I stumbled, half-pleading, willing my eyes as wide as they would go. Innocence, fear, anything to get outta his hands!

His eyes narrowed, thin lips hiking disdainfully. I choked.

"I just g-got here, I swear to god! I swear it!"

Did this guy even recognize a plea for mercy?!

He just looked at me for a second, then swung me into the hallway, battered me through a series of closed doors (I groaned as I hit them, head slapping on each, he didn't care) and then into his dark, clean room. He slammed the door, never letting go of my shirt. I could feel the pissed pink on the back of my neck, and was just about to whine about it when he dragged me closer, and I could smell that _stuff_ on his breath, fleshy and dark. Angry.

"Do you want to fuck?" He hissed suddenly, and the anger was just a want of violence now, his eyes lighting up dangerously and singing mine. I winced, pulled away, my hands scrabbling up his meaty wrists. He was pulsing, all of him, and he shook me again when I swallowed my tongue, gods, couldn't answer--

"I _said_, do you want to fuck?!"

"U-uh, y-yeah, sure!" I barked it, hysterically, eyes shut, still worming in his grip, arching as I just _said it_. Just yes to anything he wanted, yes. Yes, yes, _whatever_, be the fucking bobble-head and maybe you'll get outta this alive—

"Good." He breathed it, feral like he didn't mean it, like all of it was just a formality. He was gonna do it anyways.

My heart was hammering in my chest as he let me go-- let me go and let me stumble to my knees-- only to haul me up again at the waist, bruising everywhere he could reach.

I wasn't even hard; I wasn't feeling any of it, I was so damn scared. He was gonna kill me.

My pants first, the buckles undone with some kind of stumbling familiarity and yanked down my hips, zipper zinging angrily. Then his, pants pooled around his knees, he turned me around, pushed his legs behind mine and made me stumble.

It was all a blur. Mar bent me over the bed, elbow hard against my back, my hips in the air. I heard the lid click open and him cuss as it dribbled down my leg, chill and wet. I felt sicker than I ever had, cringing and shoving my cheek into the sheets as he hung himself over me, stifling a growl as he shoved in, thick and sudden. Just lay there as he clenched hold of my hips and _did it_, skin slapping wetly, zipper scratching my thighs, squeaking the bed.

It was mindless. I just _took_ it, breathing sharply with my eyes closed. Sobbed through my teeth when he finished, and shook me, wrenching his caveman fingers into my skin.

I felt inches from retching as he rolled off of me, breathing hard through his nose, my back sticky with his sweat. I crumpled, gagged, lashed out at the nauseous confusion as I burned from head to toe, curling up for a second and trying to keep my gasps from cracking into something like a sob-- then just bent down, shivering, and tugged my pants up.

Tried to get ahold of myself, leaning heavily on the dark, clean, ready-made bed.

Hold it, just fucking hold it, you're safe. That's all that matters, you're safe, breathing, whatever. The hysteria was dying down, every breath wasn't a hiccup. It's over, he got what he wanted, everything's dandy. I mean, what was that? Just sex. Just a bit of a fuck. It's fine, no worries. Calm the fuck down.

Heard him refasten his pants.

Time ticked on like a bomb, and I sat down gingerly on the bed, not knowing what the hell else to do in this gouged-out silence with its dry heartbeats. What, run? Make small talk?

Making conversation was the farthest from my mind as I felt the wetness inch up my thighs. Sickness, sickness; the last seven minutes was pounding on my hollow skull, begging to be let in or out. Needed something to break the silence, but hell if it was gonna be me. Luckily, loveable, caring, gentle old Mar wiped any social demands clean from my plate by stalking over to a cabinet against the wall, ramming it open, snatching out a bottle of hard gin and throwing it back like he hadn't had water for days. But this water was a little riper than most.

Oh well. At least he was keeping himself busy.

…I suddenly wanted to vomit again. It wasn't just watching him; it was just being around him. My hand clapped to my mouth and my head was full of hot echoes again.

I could'a pinned him for rape. I knew that.

Every reason was there, point blank. No interpretation required, none of that fence-sitter, dodgy moral stuff. Cut and dry. I didn't want it, he did it.

Half the Krimzon guard would'a kissed me if I _had_ turned him in. They'd even ignore the fact that there are men out there that aren't screwing women, which the higher-ups don't like to think about. They like little things like rape cases: makes it seem like they're doin' somethin', when there's a huge drug ring goin' on underway that they don't dare lay a finger on. Big guy named Krew heads it-- and he's big in the 'Establishment', even though everyone knows he'd palm weed off to a three-year-old if he had the cash. So the KG like to be all 'moral' and help the people. It's those little things, y'know. Those lovely little excuses.

'Coulda turned him in.

But I didn't. And I have no idea why.

Maybe it was the bitch-fest I'd heard. Maybe it was the pure fact of what Mar had to do every day. Maybe I was just scared spitless that he'd come after me. All of those could'a worked.

Because… I was plenty scared of him. Honest. But Mar really was hooked. He was a druggie. That eco-root shit was his mainstay--but bowing out meant getting knocked out of the running. If he didn't take this stuff—this horrible, rage-fuelling poison--he was dead. Dead.

I shivered again, trying to scrounge up anything besides hollow, restless nervousness. My insides were drying and peeling off in grey, nauseated sheets. Maybe that's what it would feel like, having to lean so bad on somethin' that your life depended on it. No rest. A tombstone always waiting around the corner.

Maybe that's why I didn't turn him in. Just 'cos he didn't need anymore problems.

'Cos maybe what he just did… shut up, I know it happened—I _know_—but maybe it… wasn't his fault. Maybe.

But even if I didn't call an abuse hotline, I still wanted to get out of there. It was the first thing on my mind, even as he dragged me _into_ the room. And even though I can't imagine trotting on home and sitting there, trying to be normal, after _this_… again, there was that feeling. Y'know, like I didn't have permission to leave.

I just gave up, wondering just how screwed we all were in life, how utterly fucked I was, and flopped back on the mattress with a whiny little (pain-sharpened) sigh, but he choked.

"No, wait. Don't… go to sleep. Yet."

Woah. Color me shocked. That actually sounded like less than a command. … It also rallied my emotional, vomity urges into one horrible desensitization-fighting force. I hated hearing his voice.

"Awright, awright, whaddya want?"

I heaved myself up by my elbows, rolling my eyes. With my normal attitude hitting me unexpectedly in the gut, I suddenly wanted—_needed_--to sob and cry, like a dozen dirty needles to the throat, then shut my squalling inner child up as he came over.

He sat down next to me, hands shaking. I flinched.

Then he grabbed my hand like he was afraid to do it and bent in low to my neck. I kept waiting for a kiss, not knowing if I could stomach the taste of him after all that shit, but it never popped up. I never convulsed. He just sat there, lulled onto my shoulder, and when he finally _did_ plant one on me, it was on my cheek. On my cheek, and soft and needy and everything that wasn't Mar.

"You could've said no." He muttered it.

_Fuck_, I thought dully—viciously. And be sent outta here in a stretcher?

But I knew it, knew it even as I hated the fact that he had the _guts_, that it was a graceless little apology. An _apology. _Foreign as anything, fucktard didn't even know the meaning of the word. I was probably the first person he'd apologized to in years, so he was a literal corpse at it.

I wondered if I could make myself care enough to shrug, but before I could try it, his arms wound around me and he hugged me close, pressing another kiss to my cheek. My heart started pounding again, short and hard and sucking at my ribcage, for reasons very much to do with a blinding fear of the man and what'd just happened and what might happen again, but it had a rival: his heart. It was rattling in his throat; you could tell he was trying to rein it in, breathing real stiff and steady. He was jittering worse'n anything, stinking of gin, eyes wild. Obviously shook up by the whole ordeal. Well, that made two of us.

Wordlessly, he let me down onto the mattress, arms still close and strong, curling his legs up after I was settled.

And for the first time, we actually slept together.

I mean, Y'know, _slept_. As in, snoozed. No screwing. Just dropping off to sleep, breathing slow and syrupy, my cheek pillowed on his shoulder. Don't know how I could've trusted him enough to do it-- _gods_, I just don't know, what with my crumpled body still feverishly damp and his breath in my ear, but I dropped off real quick. And he didn't kick me out afterwards. That night, I could'a sworn to hell and below that something was different.

But I came to in the morning, and Mar was AWOL. Made me think it was just a dream. He was the gloriously pointed asshole as always when he came back, and seemingly without a hangover, so all was normal.

And so, life trudged on.

Never turned him in.


	8. SEVEN

A/N: Now I'm being mean to Jak. I suck, don't I?

YESSIR I DO.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

SEVEN

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A young boy—arms clearly defined with rice-kernel biceps, he must have been at least fourteen—sat in the center of a darkened room, ensconced in a tired metal chair. His seat itself was not threatening… but the gurgling, churning contents of the room that lay beyond the single floodlight carried a malaise of unease.

His wrists were tied, clumsily.

Mar tugged absently at his restraints one last time, hating the fact that he had to test them. To see if he could get out, if things went wrong; and he could, so for the moment he sat still. The chemical-yellow light created a halo of cataract-like blindness around him, but he could still see the bulbous, horizontal figure moving in the shadows, prowling from table to table, muttering. Seizing things with its short arms, replacing them. When the small man paused, two-dimensional shadow of a head turning to look at him, Mar let out a shuddering breath.

"Samos—"

The old man surged toward him, thick fingers claiming the boy's shoulders, and in the hazy light Mar could see the yellow sweat greasing the man's upper lip. He glanced at the young man timorously, again and again, eyes shaking behind his scratched spectacles.

"Please, please," Samos murmured in Mar's face, hot breath noxious with some bitter, green-rooted stimulant. The whites of his eyes were oily and yellowed; Mar resisted the urge to look away from the unkempt, wide-eyed haunt. "Please, m'boy, please, just… stay quiet."

Samos skittishly retreated back into the darkness, returning in a moment with an impossibly long, intricate needle. Purple-black liquid clung to the sides of its scuffed tube, sparking faintly.

Mar's breath left him in a vicious rush, and he jerked at the sight of it: he'd never seen it so dark before. Samos made an anguished sound, tucking the instrument behind his back and rushing the boy again with his free sweaty palm, his pathetic whispers of cooperation, of desperation and wasted time. Mar stilled. Revulsion curdled in his gut as the old man wiped his weeping forehead and eyes and, sniffing, brought his needle to rest above the crook of the strong, tanned arm.

The broken scientist's fingers shook, heartbeat swelling into his head until his breathing faltered, and he had to fall back and wheeze until recovered. Then the needle was at the patient's arm again. Mar's own breathing rose, hands balled into fists beyond the rope restraints. He fought the convulsive urge to whimper, because he wouldn't give the old man the satisfaction.

He knew the quack's hysterical determination would only double if he broke down and pleaded to be let go. He had never felt safe with this man. Never.

"I-I don't know if this will…" Samos swallowed several times, and glanced up at the boy again and again. He rechecked his position as Mar stiffened, then suddenly spoke again: "Jak, I don't want to hurt you. I don't, I promise you. Please, m'boy, if you move, I just don't know…"

Mar's lip rose at the name. His face always melted in a sneer when he heard that common name they'd forced on him, to make him forget his father, but his fear was such that he could only twitch.

In that space of time, Samos stabbed him.

"That—ah!" He cried out, more in surprise than anything, as the three-pronged needle dug into his muscle. Samos' thumb snapped down, ejecting the second set of starred needles and the sparking, putrid serum. As the wicked hooks hit, Mar jerked, yelling and baring teeth—Samos moaned, swollen joints shivering, and quickly recoiled, tugging the needle out and tossing it into the air. Blood flew from the second set of holes.

The tube sloshed as it rattled across the floor, half-full yet, but the damage was already done.

"S-samo--," Mar hissed, groaning in full force and finally arching, yelling out earnestly as the first concentrated dose of poison penetrated his venal system. His body began to panic, each spasm of his legs scattering scientific refuse that lay by his ankles. He thrashed, sending scrap metal banging into the darkness; Samos cowered from the condensed mayhem, fearing every move the boy made as the ropes creaked and creaked.

Then he quieted, throat working frantically, eyes turned blindly toward the floodlight. Mar shook furiously, black veins rising from his arms like ink rivulets.

He screamed: a high, thin scream of a boy not yet past puberty. Then he forced his head down and looked at the old man.

He was long past speaking, but his eyes burned with an evil, righteous anger, and that fuel seemed to darken as Samos looked on. The child demanded how he could possibly do this—how he could sacrifice his dear friend's child in such a way, all to feed his obsession—temptation, frustration—would he stop only at death before he left the boy and his unusual talents be? Or would he find something more to do to the body--

Samos fled the nightmarish room, horrified, infantile sounds escaping him as he stumbled past the hard steel door and slammed it. The resulting clang shook him, ossified his mind, and for moments he could think no more on what he had done.

But then, the airless calm lifted with the first chaotic crash inside the room. Jak had broken his bonds… He smothered his hard, wheezing sobs as sharp crashes echoed in his lab, and Jak shrieked until his throat was raw. He could hear the boy's body collide with things, experiments snapping under the force of his blind hatred, his entire work ruined, but the boy, the boy…

A normal sound in the dark, cool, dead world beyond made him look up. Keira stood at the threshold of the basement, little body glued to the wall. She peeked out at him initially, but her vibrant eyes snapped to the door as another scream filled the cramped basement with its one metal door. Her small pink hand wandered to her mouth—though twelve, she was yet so childish, so sweet.

She looked at her father, not yet aghast. Simply curious.

"Daddy?"

"Keira," Samos called her down to him, voice compressed and pained. She padded down the steps, stopping with a sudden panic in her face as Mar smashed something thick and liquid-filled, and the resulting deluge bubbled out from under the door.

Samos urged her the rest of the way, until she was on her bruised knees next to him on the floor. She, even with fear blooming in her eyes, put a hand to his forehead.

"What's happened?" She asked him softly. She flinched as Mar roared, pain and fury eclipsing his young voice, and Samos made a strangled sound. He gathered her under his chin, clutching her close.

"How could I do it?" He whispered, petting his daughter's hair until she began crying as well, slow and nauseated, from the force of his touch and from the undulations of his wet, wrinkled neck against her cheek. His panic infected her, as the screams kept coming. She knew that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong, and she could only keen confusedly in his hot arms, somehow mourning for her friend. Her father mumbled on, growing more broken still:

"How could I do such a thing, how could I ever _think_—it wasn't supposed to—Gods, Damas, you entrusted him to a fool!" He cried now, tears mixing with his drug-addled sweat. "You trusted a madman! Damas, I never meant-- no, gods, what have I done, Jak—_Mar_--"

But as much as he sobbed, as long as he held Keira in the darkness against the metal door, where darkness incarnate raged beyond, screaming—the answer was simple.

He had to know. Eco was his life, and he had to know.


	9. EIGHT

A/N: Wooo, back.

AW, CRAP HAPPENS. I'unno. Some of it, I like. Other bits, not so much. Now, I'm just kinda focusing on finishing this sucker up, regardless of my personal reservations :B

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

EIGHT

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

One day, after so many nights and days of abuse—after wandering home in the morning with a rank memory of being non-consensually abused by my darling racer then cuddled through the night by that same darling racer, by then shaking uncontrollably in his sleep--I could finally put it into so many words: Mar is professionally fucked up.

Beyond words. Just… not even human.

And it went a step and a half farther. Once I realized the length and breadth of his problems, his anger and his drugs and his vampire-life and his dad and some… place he'd been that'd fucked him up worse than his adoptive dad did, I… kinda started avoiding him. I mean, like hell he'd actually come and _look_ for me, so I just either showed up at his pad real late, or didn't come at all. He never asked me why-- like I'd expect him to give a damn? That's like askin' me to ditch my innate love for guys slicked in rubber. Cos I swear to gods, that's the only thing that kept me coming back.

The sex was it. When I said yes, of course.

But one time, I hadn't kept track of Mar for the last week and a half. Figured he'd be _just_ fine, and get all the action he wanted from his eco-joint, and I'd be scotch-free and a prime candidate for some actual shut-eye. But as the week passed, so nice and smooth, so did the urge to sleep: you can only do it for so long, people! So there I was, hopped up on 'the horny' again, and at his door real late. Y'know, so we won't have time for anything _but_ a fuck.

I gave the door a jiggle and it wasn't locked-- like normal. The guy's so loose in every way you'd only hafta whack him on his ass to get his keys to fall out, and he wouldn't even lift a finger to stop you from jacking his zoomer. S'not like he doesn't have the money to buy everything he's got twice over, but it bugged the _fuck_ outta me to know he was so careless when I slapped thirteen locks on stuff I might toss the next day.

Catchin' a little bitterness here? Join the club, 'cos I'm president! Looks like that dark eco bitchiness is still workin' its charms on me… Ugh. Back to my yarn.

So after I ring a few bazillion times, and no one comes… I get a little suspicious. Same as he's got a speck of courtesy to meet yours truly at the door (normally), I've got the same courtesy not to barge in (too often). Partly outta respect/fear of the guy, and partly outta the fact I might trip in on that bald-ass old man of his trottin' around in his johns with a bottle of booze. Color me disturbed. But point blank, I don't go in.

But this time, I do! Cos hell, if I've been away for like, _ten_ nights, the only reason he shouldn't get up and roll out the red carpet for me is 'cos he damn well better be jonesin' for my sexy self so bad he can't stand up! Like, on the floor, moanin'! _That's_ what I'm talkin' about, hard-core need! Hate to wait any longer to put him out of his misery…

Lulled by that wonderful little imagery--ignoring the hard, cold, ever-present side of the 'sex issue' that hadn't departed since the night of 'the argument', that made my jibes a little more like napalm in my throat--I slipped in, padding through the pert little kitchen and clean hallways. Such a violent opposite to _my_ trash-pad it almost hurt, not that I'd lend the designer a penny for how he ransacked this place. Finally got to his door, which was shut tight. I kinda looked at it, real edgy, then flattened my ear to it to listen for "weird, don't-go-in" sounds.

Not that I haven't seen everything from head to toe to tail of the guy, but I know I don't like to be walked in on when I'm beatin' it. Kinduva private thing, y'know?

So there I am, playin' secret agent at my squeeze's door, when I heard it.

A wet choke.

A clattering rattle, glancing against the wall.

A gasp.

I stopped.

'Cos what do those sounds normally mean? Well, duh. _Double_ duh. Any normal, insanely possessive guy would'a thought he was bein' duped. Like, Mar got a new lay and was wastin' _no_ time breakin' the ice, the silence and the condo—_ohwait_. We're talking about Mar. Yeah, I normally—possessively--would'a thought that. But things'd changed since "normal".

The small, stifled sounds kept coming. And no, I know just what Mar's nocturnal romps sound like-- and that didn't sound like it. Didn't sound like it at all.

Sounded… bad.

Frozen, I was _waiting_ for him to come out and be all like, 'Oh, _hey_, I was jogging and making suspicious noises in my room for _no reason_ and I didn't hear you at the door! Sorry! Come on, let's fuck!' When this was not forthcoming, I knocked.

No answer.

I knocked again, a little louder, finally cracking my knuckles against the wood when another rattle came. Went on for like, two minutes, me saying his name tentatively-- but when another stifled choke hit my ears, it was all out of the running. Gone, just gone, screw booty-call etiquette: I _knew_ something was wrong. And while sometimes I think my life would be a lot easier if Mar was conveniently paralyzed from the waist up or something, a lot of selfish things change when it comes down to the fact you're the only human being around to help another human. It's instinct.

So I slammed the door open, heart racing, and met with the thing that'd definitely run circles in nightmare land for the next few weeks: Mar. Losing it.

Just… flipping.

He was stretched out on his white bed, but not lazy like he always was: stretched like painful, stretched like someone was pulling him from both ends. Some hot horrible thing was distorting his white sutures, threatening to open them up and tear them over his chest. His whole body was stiff; rigid with a fucking incredible strength that scared me spitless, like his arms and legs'd pop or splinter before they ever bent. Wet, sick rips, I could hear them-- his bones, his muscles, skin.

The low light souring his blank, gaunt face, I felt my heart come screeching to a halt as his head strained in my direction, tears streaming from his eyes.

His flat, black eyes. His pupil had swollen like a rotten fruit to eat up the blue. I choked.

"D-daxt-…Shit…" he gurgled, neck suddenly snapping the other way, quick and trembling.

I skittered over, dodging the scene: his room was haywire, like he'd staggered and screamed and thrown himself around before he got to his bed, which was in shambles around him, pillow sticking up like a lone grave-marker from the grey folds.

My hands skirted above him like I was so, so fuckin' afraid to touch him or else he'd go ballistic on me. Those taut arms would spring up and clamp around my neck if I so much as breathed on him, I knew it. I crammed my fingers in my mouth, hissing around them as I winced away from every disconnected writhe that took him deeper into the mattress.

"Oh god. Oh shit. What happened?!" I babbled, just to fill the void. Mar only twisted more, veins popping out of his pale neck around his cutthroat scars. "Mar!? _Fuck_, talk to me! Say something! Anything!"

Finally, he growled it out:

"Lost… race…"

It hit me like a wet rag in the face.

"You… lost the race…?" I repeated dumbly. Then I freaked out, rearing up against the bed to yell in his face, _screaming_ it: "And you don't think you're overreacting a little?!"

"No, y…fucker!" Mar convulsed angrily, brandishing his beast-like teeth, sharper than ever. _Animal._ I flinched back, unable to keep from whimpering. "Krew… spiked--did s-something… Darkroot…"

He didn't say anything more, just struggled in his horrible, gulping silence, and my hands fluttered and flinched at my neck.

"Oh geez, what am I gonna do?" I murmured quickly to myself, chanting it. "What the hell'm I s'posed to do?!"

Mar took a few huge, raw breaths, then twitched his shoulder.

"Syringe… counter, by… lamp. Get."

I looked over. It was like the twilight zone. The room wasn't real anymore, we were just actors in a weird set, on display for aliens…

Mar made a desperate sound, and I staggered to the counter with a nasal moan, gingerly gathering up a space-age tube of milky, phosphorescent shit encased in thick new plastic. It glowed a… maternal is the only word for it, but it glowed a comforting blueish, but that didn't stop me from soaking in the sight of the gigantic needle on the end of it. Two centimeters wide, dear gods. I stumbled back to the bed, barely breathing.

"Now?" I whispered, holding it upside-down and cockeyed, like it wasn't real and I wouldn't have to deal with it—like I could pass it off to him and he could take care of himself.

Ha ha. Boy am I a fucking dreamer.

"Stick it," Mar grunted, gesturing with his locked jaw. "Hit a vein else it'll get… worse…!"

And his soulless black eyes drifted to his arm. Intently. As though he wanted me-- me, Daxter-- to stick a needle in a vein of his arm. Without cleaning it, without aiming, without proper training, with any and all possibility of blood and death ensuing.

I flipped.

"_Fuck_! Oh god, I hate needles!" I shrieked, pleading and backing off of the bed, hands wringing, needle waggling. "Mar, fuck, Mar-- I-I can't do this, I swear! I didn't fucking sign up for this!"

Mar's barbaric shoulders gave a jerk, a growl stirring in his throat, and five distinct pops came from the bed. Mar had broken the casing of his mattress with his fingernails, which were elongating as he struggled. Elongating, and darkening to a wicked, polished black.

I looked up in utter terror as he screamed at me, rearing up from his ruined bed a terrifying three inches, teeth so _white_:

"_Do it_!"

He forced my hand, I swear. Plunging forward, with no other choice 'cos he was gonna up and rip my throat out if I didn't, I took the syringe, fist curled around it like an axe or something, and just drove it into his craggy arm. It went in like I was stabbing a waxy plant. Didn't know if I hit bone. A mouthful of blood blossomed into the tube, darkening the white goop. Then it all shot into his body.

He erupted in a horrible, demonic scream. I… I swear, it shook the walls and made me feel three years old and in the dark again. I fell down, curling up against the chest of drawers with my hands over my ears. I couldn't watch, couldn't see his face, but the spasm-wracked silhouette of him was just as terrible. The empty syringe jiggled in his arm, still stuck an inch down into the red flesh of his muscle, and Mar just screamed on and on.

Then he quieted down. He murmured—moaned—once or twice, but only once he started breathing normally again. Deep, reassuring breaths. Raw.

Then he sat up.

I unclamped my palms from my head, honestly waiting for him to freak out and kill me, like those horror-movie fake-out moments where you think everything is safe, then _bam_. But he just looked at his arm, calmness throwing me for a nauseous loop just as much as the spasm-thingy did. He considered it, then drew the needle out of his bicep like he was taking off a shirt. It dripped fresh blood. Ignoring the resulting spatter, he tossed it on the counter.

Cleared his throat.

"Don't quit your day-job. A little to the left and you would've killed me."

Didn't even look at me. Didn't even… look at me.

"I just saved your life, you rat-ass!" I screamed from the floor, hands balled against my chest. I glared daggers up at him, my heart still going to town in my ears. The descent of pure panic gave my broken mind a brittle red afterglow. "You think you could be a little more grateful; or has it happened so many times before, its like someone pickin' a dime up for you!?"

Mar stopped inspecting his arm and, nostrils flared, gave me the hardest look I'd ever seen off of the guy. I swallowed and looked the other way. Then, with a squeak of the bed, he stood up and wandered to another part of the trashed room.

Good gods.

That gave me much-needed leave to bury my face in my hands and try not to hyperventilate. It wasn't going too swell: with every breath, I was sucking in the smell of nervous sweat, all shot through with the thick musk that's gotta be dark eco. Nervous sweat, death-sweat: Mar was covered in it, a permanent sheen on his back, muscles still easing off of being so knotted up. He was up, stretching, and in the low light, I caught it. Completely off topic, I'll admit: my brain was probably _thrashing_ for something else to focus on, and thus…

"Woah."

The noise was muffled by my hands, but he glanced around at me, and caught me making google-eyes at his back. Then he gave this tired, fucked-up version of his old smirk, unshaven chin dark in the watery light.

"Just noticed?" He grunted.

"Uh. Yeah," I whispered.

It wasn't like I hadn't _seen_ it before, or known it was there. I mean, I'd seen glimpses of it. The most I'd ever had to do with Mar's person was executed in front of him and in the dark, so the muscled ridge of his upper back got little attention from me.

Still, this… this was pretty cool. Almost made me forget about what'd just happened, really. Or maybe I was just clawing for a distraction. Yeah.

It was a tattoo like I'd never seen before. Two circles, catty-corner to each other, with these visceral swishes leading them to one another, tip-to-tail. Made a bigger oval, kinda. Like two halves of a circle. The circles were shot through with sharp flames of aqua, dripping into that intense blue where you don't know whether it's purple or royal blue. The swishes were done-up like speed arrows. It was… hard-core.

"Sweet tat," I said, a little breathlessly.

"It's my dad's logo," Mar supplied blankly. "His dragster mark."

I shut up for a second, 'cos I reminded myself I wasn't supposed to know about his dad. I mean everybody knew about his dad… but I _knew_. I bit my lip for a second and let my mouth go on autopilot.

"Yeah. I was… thinkin' about getting' one of those. Y'know. A big one. Just like that." I pointed to my ass, face not so much thoughtful as burned to numbness. "Maybe here."

He might've smiled. He might've snorted. With his back to me, I couldn't tell. After a second I started again, now curious. _Curious_. After all that shit… Now, I can't even believe myself. I've got Stolkholm's to the max. Geez.

"When'd you get it?

"Right after prison."

"_Fuck_?" I barked, eyes wide. He looked around at me, and I had the brains to rephrase my question. "…I mean _come again, _babe?"

"You're shocked," he muttered, starting to slide a shirt over his head.

"Uh, _yeah_!" I stopped. Thought about Mar, then shook my head fervently. "… Wait. No. But what the hell'd you get in for?"

"I tried to get out of the city," he said, smoothing out his sleeves and talking to the floor. "No clearance card."

"They only dish those to the higher-ups. But you tried anyway?" I asked skeptically. There was no answer, obviously—'cos, well, here he was, loveable old Mar, who was _studiously_ embroiled in getting dressed—but I wanted something more. More stuff to trick me into thinking that five minutes before had been a dream. So, Mar trying to escape the city didn't sound natural, my busy (desperate) little mind divined. I immediately thought there must have been someone after him, but knowing Mar, it was something way sicker.

I edged into making him talk again, voice casual.

"What's so big about gettin' outta here, big guy? I mean, enough that you'd go toe to toe with the Krimzon Guard? S'far as I know, you only got sea and busted country bumpkins as far as you can roll. You just sick'a Haven?"

He paused at the window, which was tightly shuttered. I realized I was still on the floor, even though we were actually having a decent conversation for once (I honestly think I hold the record for 'the highest amount of non-threatening words gleaned from Mar'), so I stood up, which made him jerk around, newly blue eyes wide and feverish. I stood stock-still in the near-dark, then shrugged with a small grin. Ears lowering, he retreated to the bed and sat down.

Surprising myself, I sat next to him. Stockholm's strikes again. He started talking after a deep breath, voice low and gentle. Human, really.

"I like the idea. Living in the country, I mean. Without all the racing and the nightlife. The threats. It'd be simpler. I like the sea. To live by it-- that's what I want to do," Mar murmured, like the words were familiar but daunting. He rubbed his arm where the needle had gone in. "Dad… used to take me to the wasteland. He was really big there, and he'd bring me to the beach and tell me that other places were better. Wonderful. Places like Sandover. This city was built over it, but Deadtown has most of the shit that's left. It's too rotted to bother tearing down. There's a big round wooden cabin; you should see it."

Then he smiled.

A real smile. His very, very first smile, one that didn't tug, didn't jerk, didn't flicker or show teeth. It was small and pleasant. Happy. He _had_ to be goo-goo off of that white glowy stuff, but Precursors if my sore old heart didn't jump to see it.

"I visit it sometimes," he said quietly. He looked down into his lap. "You hardly ever see things built of wood."

I hardly even knew what I was looking at anymore. It was the shock. It was the goddamn shock, I _knew_ it was the irrationality of a near-death experience, but… I could see Mar as a kid now. I could see him as something other than a road-raging ball of resentment and drug-sex, but rather as a lanky blond kid with a wide smile and clear blue eyes. I mean… I was stretching it, I knew, and he could'a been yanking my chain so easily with this 'gentle' act. But I could see it.

He liked beaches, I knew. I liked beaches too.

I cleared my throat, feelin' kinda sappy.

"Well, who'da thunk it? Mar the big city slicker turns out to be a real country boy. Never would'a put you for one to herd Yakkows, Billy," I joked, even daring to poke him in the ribs. He looked over, and his smile didn't change. Heart still jumping, I stroked my chin and looked at him, just soaking in his different look. "It's a little odd, but I like a little spice with my sweet, y'know. But… they locked you up _just_ for tryin' to get out?"

I wanted him, so badly, to say 'yeah'. Yeah, they just hate people tryin' to leave Haven, and I got locked up cos've it. Don't know what it would'a meant to me, what door it would've opened, but I wanted it so, so badly in that second.

"Sounds like the Guard," he muttered, shaking his head. His smile faded. "It was that… and I killed one of them."

I remembered who he was. Remembered who, exactly, I was with. I turned and looked at the wall ahead of us. My stomach sank level with my knees.

"…Shit," I said softly.

He stayed silent, eyes fixed glassily ahead.

"Just… a random Joe?" I tried, shrinking in the empty, tense air.

"No," he said. "Erol. Commander Erol."

The name hit me hard enough to make starbursts. Mar kept right on talking.

"He tried to kill me. Shot him. Took his gate pass. Almost made it, but they got me with a Charger bike-- the ones that are made for kamikazes. They put me in for two years," he continued dully, shaking his head again. "Krew bought me out at the last second. Heard of all the times I'd try to get out, and of the wild chase when I tried for the city gates the first time. I guess I beat that bastard to the mark before I killed him, so he was… impressed."

His mouth twitched, humorlessly. 

"Hired me as a racer. Gave me enough to get this on my back, and set me on the track. I rarely disappoint.

I couldn't hear anything by that point. Nothing, nada, _zilch_.

'Cos, okay. Okay. Holy shit. I don't think you guys understand. I'm gonna clarify for ya'll, so just listen up.

Erol—Commander Erol of the Krimzon Guard, the craziest fucker you'll ever meet-- was like, a god on the track. Okay, Mar was a god, Erol was the _father_ of all gods. He was the big-daddy Precursor! He raced so much that eventually the chums at the stadium forced him outta biz, 'cos he kept beatin' everyone. He was invincible. Not only that, that guy was out for _blood_. He raced dirty. Real, real dirty. Boys'd come out smokin' from the tips of their ears after he had his way with 'em. Must've put thirty in the ER, half as many in the dirt.

He just wanted to kill you. He didn't race to win, he raced for notches on his belt. It was a blood game. He made the sport into what it is today. Even me, and I don't know much about racing, I knew him. Everybody knew him.

Plus, he didn't care who you were: if you screwed with him on the track, he'd take it outside, and he'd take you down. Big or small, alone or with five friends, didn't matter. An insult was an insult, and his version of an insult was a little eyeballing. Fuckin' insane. That man was _touchy_. Really, he was the gimmick that made racing so big in the first place, 'cos people loved goin' to a place they _knew_ would be in the papers the next day.

ie: RACING KING INJURES SEVEN IN BACKALLY STADIUM BRAWL…

They ate it up.

He eventually was booted (formally, with nice, money-lending papers), and the tracks had a brief vacation from gettin' rubber-raped for about a year. Everybody had an even chance, and no one was gettin' seriously bumped. Then Mar showed up, end of story.

But Erol was a _legend_. And Mar beat him to the gates?

… And killed him?

Suddenly, big and looming and inexcusable, the drug-riddled panic attack of quarter-hour previous resurfaced in my head. Suddenly, I couldn't ignore it and the guy I was with, or half the stuff he'd done. Half the stuff I'd put up with, and the other half he probably hadn't told me about yet.

"Um. Hey," I mumbled, drawing his attention beside me on the bed. I bit my lip. "I gotta go. S'late."

It was quick, I know. He gave me a look to say, hey, he wasn't surprised that I didn't want what I'd originally come for. A little bored, even. Like guys usually split after he admitted to being a murderer, and I was no different.

In that respect, I definitely wasn't. I'd hate to see the guy who would stick around, really.

"Got work tomorrow, y'know," I started to chuckle, shallow and tired. "Not all of us can be hot-roddin' vampires."

I flinched after I said it, heart lodging in my throat. _A vampire, a freak_. What he'd called himself when he fought with his sister. He turned to look over his shoulder, his freshly-blue eyes flat and wary, like he _knew_ what I'd said, he knew it and just… knew.

I ran out of the room. If you asked me afterward if I could remember what that one pure smile was like, I couldn't tell you.

Professionally fucked up.


	10. NINE

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

NINE

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He always acted like it was the first time it had happened. Like it was the first time he had ever lost control, or his eyesight had zeroed out into some hellish heat-vision and he could _hear_ pulses in the air. Teeth itching. Claws like black calcium extensions of his hot bones—claws, he had _claws_.

He always acted like it was the first time he'd wanted to kill someone for no reason at all.

But it had happened, because of who had ultimate power over him: who managed his miserable half-life. It was dirty, low. _Painful_. But he almost welcomed the hellish abandon sometimes, for the brief respite the diluted, protein-laced light eco provided him after it ripped its way through his wet blackened insides. That… return to his old self.

He wasn't quite sure what his 'old self' was, but it was better than his day-to-day self. Night-to-night shell, rather. It was better. More happy. Less… headache. Drifty.

Human.

Darkroot didn't have pure Dark eco in it, and even if it didn't burn his skin like the real stuff did, it still had problems. As the years went by, he had to smoke more of it to last through the night. More, always more. Even then, he didn't make it. Adrenaline burned the watery substitute out, leaving him near breaking point at the end of each race.

The next race would always be to the nearest bar.

Liquor, he learned, helped. Made the Dark eco last longer, and kept his head clear. He turned into a very, very good drinker. Never had a hangover: dark eco ate up the alcohol in his system, and all of its effects. His liver was flawless and would be 'till he died. He was never sick. Someone with the bubonic plague could roll over him in the nude, and he could come away smeared with pustules, putrid phlegm dripping from his mouth, _a quart of puss in his stomach, lining his throat_: a simple bath and a toothbrush would clear it away.

He was invincible. It was a tested theory: he could not die. He could not die… and you always want what you just can't have. It's part of being human, and it was the only part of humanity he had left. Everything else, he knew, was long gone.

It wouldn't be long before Daxter knew that—realized that he'd known it for months--and he'd be alone again. Another binge, another purge. Another person, staggering away from his life a little more battered than they came into it.

And it always seemed like it was the first time it'd happened.


	11. TEN

A/N: I really like this chapter. Thass'all. Just like how Krew is back after his chapter 6 mention—drug ring, you say? Hm, I've never heard of such a thing.

OH MAR. Poor baby.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

TEN

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He sat at the dark, empty bar, drink in hand. The half-full, sooty glass was a courtesy that, unexpectedly, he gulped down: he hardly believed they would poison him yet, and he dearly needed the alcohol. His hair was yet uncut, a tired blond swab matted to his shoulders. A vivid purple bruise encompassed his chin and cheek; his split lips were currently open and splitting further as he snarled:

"_Hell no_."

He tasted blood and sucked it away from his chapped mouth.

The video screen before him flickered, but the wide, sneering man it featured was a model of perseverance. Krew smiled toothily: a rare feat, having only every other mottled tooth left to display.

"You're going to have to do better than that, m'boy… anyone within city limits knows I don't take no for an answer."

Anyone did know it—anyone who knew the inner workings of Haven, and just how much the upper-class denizens were _not_ under the government's control. But still Mar spat onto the bar floor vengefully, meeting Krew's distasteful expression with a hot blue glare.

"How can you offer me this?" He spat at the gang-lord. "How the hell can you sit there and say that like it's nothing?"

"Think of it as a punish-reward system, Mar…. It's really quite simple," Krew grumbled genially. "After your treatments, you need Dark eco to survive. They've cut off the access to Deadtown and the Outside, so you can't go there to… what? Sunbathe near the fetid eco pools, I suppose," he laughed at the idea, as if imagining a beautiful blonde woman lounging near Deadtown's dark slag pools with a brightly colored umbrella perched above her.

Mar flinched.

He had a jagged scar on his right arm from a metalhead who caught him doing just that, before prison. The only reason he was alive was due to a wandering group of Wastelanders on their way into the city. They might have been employed by Krew, knowing his fetish for unquestioning Wastelanders; Mar didn't say anything.

Krew rumbled on.

"So where is poor starving Mar to turn to? No eco, and it gets quite painful, doesn't it? Far beyond a grumbling stomach." His eyes gleamed, wet, flabby mouth inching to the side. "Hours, even, and things start _happening_—"

"How do you know?" Mar demanded, voice low and sharp. Krew ignored him.

"Darkroot is a thriving substitute for Dark eco. It's a easily-perforated plant practically pickled in dark eco from a seedling." His tongue seemed to lap up the alliteration, capping it with a grungy, satisfied chuckle. "I happen to own the largest drug-distributing ring in the country and have generous access to that horrible substance through a few… scientist friends of mine. We'll have you tied up to the system in no time."

Mar sat in silence, studying the man who had the entire city under his thumb. Interpreting this silence as understanding, Krew settled his heaving bulk more firmly in front of the vidscreen, leaning close into its smeared lens. He smiled again.

"Here's my deal, Mar. I'll keep you supplied, healthy—sane—" he jeered quietly, then continued diplomatically. "And you win my high-dollar races for me. I bet all my coins on you, and if you win—"

"Nothing happens."

"Not at all, Mar," Krew derided him gently. "You get fame, money, fortune—"

"Which'll soon be your fame, your money, your fortune," Mar ground out, eyes burning resentfully.

"Mmmn, you have a point there… Everything does come back to me in the end." Krew sounded quite pleased with himself, and twiddled his thumbs exuberantly. "Clever boy: you know how this works."

"You pick up a few things in this city," Mar said acridly.

"Mmm, surely, but are you ill at ease with the way it works?" Krew inquired dubiously, dissecting the young man with his small, mismatched eyes. "After all, who picked your poor wicked, undeserving self out of prison, mm? Eh? Right before our Baron was about to—"

"Shut up," Mar interrupted softly. "Shut the fuck up."

"Mm, yes. Tempers are always cute. I'm certain the ladies will adore you, m'boy," the gang-lord said with relish, then retreated once again to his professional dialect, though his eyes remained piggish and gleeful as they absorbed Mar's hard, handsome features. "Moving on, Mar. If you win, you will have fame and fortune aplenty. Enough to take care of your darling sister and her father, isn't that right? Isn't that what you want? To pay them back for all the trouble you've caused?"

Mar twisted where he sat, poison brimming behind his teeth, but settled for a tense syllable:

"Yes."

"However, if you lose—"

"I die," Mar rasped.

Krew stayed suspended for a few tick-tocking seconds, then dipped in a sheepish little shrug, eyes rolling upwards.

"Well, if the earnings from _my_ races aren't paid in full, I can't guarantee that I can make the next shipment of darkroot to your location... It is so _very_ rare, " he explained in a sniveling tone, small eyes predatory above the comical expression. "You know how unpredictable these things are. Gang politics: _really_"

Mar looked down, embroiled in his own stunted, furious thoughts. Anger distorted his face, stretching the bruise; underneath the bar, his fist trembled atop his knee.

"Don't worry." Krew smiled again. Reassuring him. "Shipments will pick up again the instant you start winning."

"Doesn't sound like a good deal to me," Mar said darkly, eyes skewering the bloated man.

Krew glared at him through the screen, all trace of oily humor gone. It was not an angry glare, but a firm one. One of utter ownership.

"It's the only one you have," he snarled, and the screen went dead.


	12. ELEVEN

A/N: I scream. You should too.

Three more chapters to go. Happy ending? What the _hell_ is that?

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

ELEVEN

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I've been takin' some time off work lately. Just to take a load off my feet (not in the horizontal way), you know—and my head.

I must've called in sick about three times in the past week, but it's gone over smooth-like, 'cos Miriam just thinks I'm finally giving into my mystery cold, so hey. I'll take what breathing-space I can get, especially when that bar—or any bar, really—is the last place I wanna be. 'Cos I've been hearin' some weird things lately.

Last night I checked into my pigsty of employment, and… well, the rest of the grimy old staff is still gettin' over this new chick we picked up: blonde, and a real squealer. She's fine, unless someone sets her off… which happens a lot. So I walked in last night to find her practically shaking Orla down (who seemed to be silently pleading for some razors and a warm bathtub), squeaking on about how she thought she saw _Mar_ lurking in the corner for, like, two nights straight, never had the courage to talk to him, just left him alone, ohmygod!

And I'd been gone the past two nights. Thanks to my lucky stars, in any case! I didn't wanna set eyes on anything that looked like it could be the second-cousin twice removed of the man!

Plus, hey. There ain't a snowball's chance in hell he was the real item. That far from home? Probably some look alike wannabe, but still, the idea just… shakes my swagger a bit. It'd almost sound like Mar's tryin' to hunt me down, right? Tryin' to find me. Tryin' _real_ hard.

I mean, my workplace is waaaay out of his range of normal haunts. His bars are within a three-mile radius of the tracks (so believe me, he has his pick of about fifteen…) but mine was at least ten miles out. Regardless of what I did or didn't know about the jackass, I didn't think he'd drive that far.

Much less to see _me_. Come on. The guy that proved _just_ how much he doesn't wanna bang a psycho drug-addict murderer? Hmmm. What a stiff-necked putz am I. Seriously.

Thus life found me, completely unawares as usual, footing it into work one night without a thought in my head. A rock song cycled in and out of my mouth, usually queuing in on wailing lyrics, and I passed all the alleyways possible without incident. All except the one.

Inches from humming myself deep into a freakin' awesome guitar solo, I skittered to a halt outside the last, fastidious alleyway that belonged to my bar. The first heads-up must have been the trashcan on its side, still wiggling to a halt. The second was a clear, guttural choking sound coming from the dark crevice beyond it. Something. Someone. Hangin' the alley.

Could'a been anybody, really, and I don't make a habit of barging into dark alleyways where people conduct business like muggings and murders—as in, personal business between two people! People who don't want to be disturbed, and I don't bother 'em! The chill night and low cloud cover just screamed for an inhumane headline or two, and I didn't wanna be a part of anything I couldn't read about the morning after.

Still, despite my usually passive leanings on alleyway spelunking, a dense lump of doubt congealed in my stomach. Didn't know what I'd be missing if I just walked on, even though that was the smart thing to do, and I was smart… But what the hell was I talking about, _missing_ something in an alleyway? Yeah, like I'd miss my throat if they jacked me with a knife!

But the noise came again, tempered with a few quick breaths. Close and real, echoing. Touchable.

I winced.

"Hello?"

The guy (had to be a guy) inside the alleyway groaned so loudly and so deeply I thought the ground shook. No idea why I went in. Probably because I'd learned to recognize _that_ voice when it was in pain. Shows you just how solid we were, really: I was like a nanny tuned in to hear her brat whining from a mile off. I just walked in.

It's amazing what "just walkin' in" can do to you. Precursors.

Pins and needles were racing up and down my arms, pulling doughnuts across my hunched back: I fairly skulked around the trashcans, ready to _run_, then straightened with a little something more than a shriek. A stocky, filthy someone was doubled against the wall, blood-smeared hands tucked and latched and crammed different places, all vibrating with pain. Further down the alley was a pigsty, like he'd stumbled and fallen there—just like his bedroom was a wreck.

I could hardly believe it, he should have been _miles_ from where I was, because I'd made sure of it, I'd _planned_ it-- but somehow it made sense. Somehow. Rationality didn't do anything to lower my voice, though.

"Mar?" I screamed from the bottom of my spritely five-foot frame, professionally tripping backwards. Somehow, I semi-crunched my hand on a garbage lid during the ride and tucked the numb lump of me behind my back, still staring at him. Horrified. "Holy—gods, what're you doing here?!"

His face was hidden against his knees, which were red and scratched and shining through holes in his pants. He coughed, hands worming to his mouth, and his whole body quailed.

"Go—g-get some beer—"

I gaped at him. Still coping with the fact I'd just found Haven's top racer hunched in an alley, spattered with _blood_, it was a fuckin' crazy sentence. It just was.

"_What_? At a time like this, are you bat-shit?!"

"No—something hard—" he gritted out, acting like he hadn't even heard me (and believe me, I'd be surprised if the palace pompadours weren't looking up from their crosswords when I'd screamed). Another wave of agony—that's the only word for it: liquid, smoldering, all-consuming agony—seemed to infect him, bubbling through his body, and he arched against the wall, clutching his head.

"Please—" he gasped.

I would've said no, for several reasons. I would've said, hey, let's get you inside and get an up-and-down by Orla, she knows what she's about. I'm sure there's someone in there with a band-aid for your fuckin' _brain_—but the fact that he sounded like he was dying, and the fact that a wide taper of blood had just burst out of his nose so heavy and quick that it was dripping off his chin in seconds? Told me that this wasn't something ordinary people could fix.

This was a Mar problem, and if Mar needed booze, he was gonna get it.

I ran the thirty-some-odd feet to my bar, burst in, and shouted for vodka. Screamed for it. Yeah, I needed it _just that bad_—and when no one rallied to the call, all giving me ponderous, syrupy looks of disbelief, I nicked something huge and full of clear liquor right off a waitress and ran back out the door, leaving her angry shouts behind. My body was a compact, terrified little machine, running off of red ice and the beginnings of a fear headache. Going back into the alley, I almost expected to find blond, horrible, broken Mar… dead.

Almost hoped for it, but slashed the thought to pieces. It wasn't that I wadn't _mean_ enough to think it: I could be plenty mean when I wanted to be. I just… couldn't _hope_ for it.

I got next to him, crash-landing on my knees with the bottle in my outstretched hands. He reached for it, but it was like his arms were pinned to his sides. He was starting to lock up; his hands were starting to bend into claws. His head creaked towards mine, hazy blue-black eyes twitching so, so slightly back and forth. Sweat lay greasy and thick all over him. He didn't move. Breathing hard, I grabbed the container, popped it open with my teeth and dug a hand behind his ear, fisting his hair. I tilted his head back and, fuck me, what was I doing—poured it onto his lips.

Even after he pried his teeth apart to take the second draught, it spilled out of his mouth, he was shaking so bad. It all mixed with the blood on his lips, turning the upchucked stuff pink. He choked, coughed, then, after a few sputtering mouthfuls, shocked the hell out of me by grabbing it himself and shoving it to his teeth, taking huge, impossible gulps of what smelled like the ripest liquor ever. I fell back, one arm propped defensively over my face as he chugged it, slopping it down his front. The wet, gross noises filled the alley, but in a few minutes—_minutes_, that thing was at least a twenty-ouncer, his stomach should be _ashes_—he was done.

The bottle fell and clanged and rolled away, and the raw, red-smeared hand that held it slowly lowered to the ground—empty, but surely not feeling it. Mar pulled in buckets of air, chest bloating then, suddenly, shut up. All of his grudging life and soiled energy siphoned into the act of shaking like a madman in the silence of the alley. He curled up, one hand brutalizing his face. Rocking back and forth, ever-so-slightly.

I couldn't look at his eyes. Just... no. That would've let me inside, and I never… would've gotten out. Never.

"Mar," I said.

He breathed hard, just for a second. Made a soft, anguished noise, but didn't look at me.

"Mar," I whispered, now, because I couldn't raise my voice and I couldn't touch him: I would vomit and strangle myself, respectively, if I tried. My body just couldn't take it. Fear turned my blood green, and made my throat close up.

Then he said something.

"Close," he rasped. He turned to me, and I couldn't avoid looking at his eyes—but the abyss had retreated. I was safe, after a fashion: he had lost the power to destroy me, to suck me in. He was just… Mar, a human being who'd been torn to pieces. I absorbed his hellish face in the silence. Water dripped, somewhere.

After a second, he smiled, because there was nothing else to do.

"That was close."

I couldn't say anything to that.

"One for the books," he murmured. His hand flexed at his side like a separate animal.

"What—" I heaved quickly, unable to help myself. It was a small word, but also a moan, also an inverted sound of dismal shock, a convulsion of a question—and he cut me off before I could ask it.

"I went too far. I went too far," and he started to shake again. Words jabbed out of him, stitched together by taut nerves.

"If you hadn't… I never would've… made it back. I would've been gone, in…middle of the street. Here. For… maybe crashed. S'why I try to never… drive outside the track. Think've how…"

He hiccupped suddenly, the simple drunkard _Mar_ action seeming so sick, with the way his eyes rolled. His body clenched up then loosened like silly putty, bright blue eyes fixed on me. Disjointed. Some sort of mental cadaver.

"Think've how they would've found me," he whispered. Looking at me. "Laying in the road. An alley. Mar, the k-king. Down like… s-some piss-ass drunk."

He just started chuckling. A gray, wispy sound. Like he found it so goddamn funny, when suddenly he was telling me his story.

"And it'd only take a little while… 'till I started screaming."

I looked down, blood filling my ears. I knew what he was talking about. When he ran out, of Dark root, he said… I didn't want to understand, but I did.

"S-seizure. Paralysis. Other big words. Bleeding through my nose, my mouth," he pawed at his wet mouth and upper lip, and surveyed the generous smear of it with dull eyes. "My ears, if they were stupid enough to try and turn me over. Or touch me.

Quietly vicious. Then his voice cracked.

"They wouldnt've known what t'do with me. Wouldnt've known how to fix me. I'd just have to… wait there. Wait until K-keira—"

All of his weak, scared words tumbled out and this'd happened before. This'd happened, and it'd turned out okay—different from what happened in the bedroom, the _reverse_--but he was so fucking afraid of it happening again. Happening where no one could reach him or help him. People watching, screaming, I could feel it like white hands in the crooks of my arms, holding me flat on a street while my body died and my mind struggled--

He lurched forward, and wrapped his huge arms tight around me. The touch scared me, like a slap or a blow. I was tangled up in his airless hug, clenching my arms around his own stocky back, squeezing back just 'cos I was so scared. Mar shivered, fingers fretting at my hair; I buried my face in his shoulder to block it all out, the waves of sickness spewing from him, the utter suicidal desperation--

"S'okay, hey—hey," I mumbled, inches from hot, horrified tears. I cleared my throat. Couldn't think with him next to me, dying in fits and bursts. "Hey, Mar, it's gonna be okay. Cool it, big guy, it's gonna be okay. You're alive."

He sobbed, shaking his head.

"I wanna die." He crushed his forehead to my cheek, his tears smearing and slipping on mine. "I wanna die, Daxter. That's all I want."

He looked up at me, eyes wide. Looked at my face, then held my eyes. His big, filthy _red_ hand worried at my arm, squeezing.

"I think about you," he whispered.

"Okay," I said blankly.

What else was there to say? Yipee, wahoo, I have a corner of your brain? I could hardly handle what was in front of me, this drug-relapse addled mess, and now he wants to tell me that he _thinks_ about me? I nodded, without thinking, and Mar spoke up again.

"Yeah. I think about you. Daxter." He looked down, then up again, suddenly putting a bit of energy behind his words. "Dax. Can I call you that?"

I was totally body-slammed off course with his weird little ADHD changes in tone and subject, (like, you know, from shaking, screaming and dying to _this_) and the way his eyes were glued to my face. He was like some little kid dumped in an alleyway, learning the names of the people who'd come to slit his throat. Too elementary, too unconcerned. Even his voice sounded different.

He'd nearly died, and here he was asking me if he could use a nickname. It sounded fucking weird even from his mouth, but I nodded grimly. By now, I was ashamed of my coping time: _this_ was one for the books.

"Told you so when we shacked up the first time. Y'can call me anything you want," I muttered, trying to sound cute. Failed. Looping an arm around him, I planted my knees hard on the ground and spoke into his ear. "Let's blow this candy-shack, huh? Get you outta here…"

And so I did. Got him into the bar. And—damn me, I got this close to passing him off to someone else. I had a customer who owed me a favor: he was a dickhead, but not such a dick that I wouldn't trust him to drive my… _friend_ to his humble abode, which left me to go home and bawl and scream in a corner for as long as I wanted. But the second I tried to talk to someone in the bar, Mar hurt me. He didn't mean it—not like he may have, once, like when he pushed me too hard or almost popped my wrist out of place and then smirked afterwards—but his body twisted in weird ways and I had to shut up and wince, or just keep moving. He only calmed down when we were alone, but his big hands stayed on me wherever I dragged him.

Soft, fearful touches, until they were strong, fearful touches.

"G-go with you…" he muttered, coughing, when I'd forced the kickstand of aforementioned dick's zoomer into place (favors are very flexible around here: I said I'd get it to him in the morning, managing only so much before Mar nearly bruised my neck with his jerking around).

"Say again?" I gulped. He shook from head to foot, then heaved his chin up to look at me.

"T'me with you," he tried again, and no matter how he bit his words, it wasn't angry. I realized with a sickly jolt that he was desperate to come with me. Similarly, I was no less than magnificently nauseated when I realized that this gave me utterly no escape from him for the next however-many hours. Until he could walk a straight line. Because I couldn't just fuck him over when he was this bad: I had to do what he needed. I'd seen too much to do otherwise. I got us both on the zoomer, cutting up my hand trying to get his gummy, weighty leg over.

"Shit," I whispered, once settled on the borrowed ride with Mar's arms around my middle. "Fuck me."

Should I have censored this chirping exclamation at having the pleasure of his drug-shot company? Didn't matter: he'd passed out against my wet, aching back. Sneering hatefully at the company I'd come to keep (and here I thought myself a high-class boy, tugging a liquor-soaked, blood-spattered addict behind me on my way home on a ride that was NOT mine) I got us to my house—if you could even grace The Den with a title that emotional. I stuck the zoomer behind a dumpster, chained it, and dragged my emotional baggage incarnate up the thin stairs to my scratched-up front door. Kicked it open when the key wouldn't work, as per usual.

Even with Mar so out of it, I still didn't want him seeing too much of my place. Call it that 'Mind scrambling for useless details' thing again. I wedged him into a corner so stained that _he_ couldn't leave a stain, then ran somewhere else, _away_ from him. The ice in my blood was melting to a sluggish, inadequate soup of uncertainty and shivers by the time I'd got the rusty water slobbering into my yellow bathtub. I mean, hey, no shallow intentions here: the guy smelled like he'd bathed in Ringo's Rip-Up 45 for three hours, and he had to get that blood off him. I didn't like blood. I didn't like it so much that I didn't even question it—because his hands were only slightly cut, and his knees were only scratched. Nowhere near banged-up enough for so much blood.

Plus, I figured I could give him some forcible privacy. I didn't wanna see his face for a good long time that night. Maybe screaming and crying in a corner was still an option? Hmm. I'll have to check my schedule. But first, Mar plus bathtub equals good.

Even better? Well…a little drowning couldn't be too much to ask, could it?

Maybe he'd heard the water running (or walking—damn slum water works), because when I'd got to him, he'd already wrestled his shirt off… I sincerely hope so, because otherwise his random, wasted strip-show was entirely too creepy to comprehend. He was about ready to pass out again from just that, eyes fluttering all over the place, so I helped him with the rest, using just my hands and not my eyes. Eventually I got him in, and wanted to shoot myself as I closed the door on him.

Just… how? I'm asking you, seriously. _How_? I'll tell you one thing, man, I may have signed up for the party and not the drive home, quoth our cuddly Mar, but I most certainly did not sign up for _this_ shit. Like I said, I should be paid damages for this.

I was… so exhausted. More than in my entire life, exhausted. My body, my brain, my… tender strange place in my chest… all grey and dry.

The entire chain of events hadn't caught up with me, because half of my mind was still lodged back in the alleyway, deciding whether to go in and shatter my soul, or keep humming Bossa Nova and go to work. Tough, tough decision. All I could manage was a minute gagging when I tried to think about it, or Mar in general: so, like all low-income, emotionally confused souls do, rather than facing my problems (which were all chilling in my bathtub an uncomfortable fourteen feet away) I curled up in my favorite chair and turned on the boob-tube.

_Click_.

Wheee.

Infomercial.

Carli the Crocadog.

Praxis-channel.

Pretty chick with long plastic blond hair in front of a dark alleyway. Flashing lights. I recognized her from a certain Indy news channel, pretty much heartlessly dedicated to giving uncensored, hard-ass, gossipy reports on anything worth screening. I settled back and tuned in.

"—and while street-crime is at an all-time high this year, ladies and gentleman, this is another matter entirely. For all those who missed our breaking news at eight, the body was found a little under two hours ago when a group of teenagers were drawn to an alleyway by the sounds of someone calling for help. The attacker fled by the time they arrived, and the young boy, a local by the name of Ruse, died within minutes."

I turned away and stuffed my head under a ratted pillow, coughing when I breathed in a little loose yellow stuffing. I didn't need to hear this. They had to say his name. The TV buzzed and ruffled its technological feathers, and a wet, girly voice broke in through the white noise.

"He wasn't just killed, he-he was ripped apart—"

I crammed myself so far into my nest I had trouble breathing. At least that gave me something to focus on: those asphyxerotica people were onto something, depriving yourself of air really did do something crazy and distracting to your heart rate—

"It's gotta be a metal-head. I… I just never seen nothing like it! Theys metal-heads in our city, man!"

I rolled my eyes. Guess who hails from the dumbitty dumb slums? Way to represent, man. I let go of the pillow a bit, my cynicism a soothing liquor to my fear. Slowing me up a bit. I looked at the tube, eyes feeling sticky and dry.

"All those who volunteered comments agreed on one thing: the attacker was not human, and neither were its motives. This animalistic attack is like nothing seen before in Haven, and even the coroners are puzzled."

Dundundun, I mouthed. Thought about changing the channel—forgive me for my bitchy lack of sympathy, but I'd been through a cubic acre of shit tonight, and I didn't need anything more. I rooted for the control.

"But disturbing is the fact that the first blow the child suffered was on his face—the claw marks are precise, and in a set of five. No metalhead we know of has this particular digit anatomy. A fragment of what is assumed to be claw material was gathered from the victim's clothes. As you can see, it's a glossy black—"

I looked up, lungs withering. In her assistant's hand, past the fingers of static worming on the screen, was a wicked curl of black nail. Almost whole.

The rest of her words dribbled into my dark apartment like insects, buzzing and fouling up the air. No words, no meaning, no nothing—because… precursors, it couldn't help to think like that, so the pillow went back over my face.

Black, glossy nail. Nails, five of them, popping into the mattress.

Mar'd been doin' bad lately. In the races. I'd heard it.

I hadn't been coming to see him, obviously, _obviously_, because he was on his way out of my life, I'd _planned_ for it, but he was still Mar and because of that he was always looking out from front pages of magazines and I'd _heard_ things. I hadn't been there, and the last time he'd lost a race, he…

Maybe she hadn't been there, either. Keira. Maybe the syringe had never left the counter. And he… tonight, he—blood freezing all over again, I scrambled to the bathroom, jerking open the door.

Mar was crouched in the carmine water, looking up with his white face and shadowed eyes, and just seeing the color around him made the pain behind my eyes swell. I stumbled, staggered, something—my hand clapped onto the doorframe, and I bit back a sickened noise. I didn't know—I couldn't know, why was I so sure that something else followed those black claws, some kind of need to kill out of pure _rage_ and that it all had something to do with that kid and the black shard on screen—but I looked and his fingers retreated into his palms, and his eyes drifted to the bloody water swilling around his naked legs.

One of my hands jerked to my mouth.

"Show me your hands," I demanded, quivering. He didn't move. His tattoo was a dirty green in the yellow, putrid light. I quaked in the doorway with my heart in my throat and my wrists, TV yammering on behind me. The faucet dripped.

"Show me your _fucking mitts_!" I yelled, raw and hateful, surging forward like I was gonna slap him. He closed his eyes and seemed to shudder again. He looked homeless, sick and lost. Helpless, and I wasn't gonna give him that. Not if he did it.

Not if he-- not if he hurt that kid.

He raised his hands out of the water, and a cloudy pink film dripped down his wiry forearms and right on the middle finger on the left hand there was an angry pink and red and black eye-socket where a nail was supposed to be. As I watched, it bled, eagerly down and down until the rivulet ran off his wrist and dripped with an innocent sound into the water.

My back touched the frame. He looked at me past his guilty hands, eyes burning blue. No emotion, no regret, just a blue fire. Mental cadaver, no more room for guilt. I stared at the ceiling, eyes burning, but so differently.

"You lost another race," I said.

He didn't say anything. Fresh blood fell off his wrist, once, twice, and his hands trembled in the air. I ran out.

And the second I sprinted outside and slammed the door behind me, and stood on real ground in a real lamplight, shivering in the cold air, still reeking of booze and Mar's dark sickness all over my face and hands… I thought, hey. That's kinda my freaky-limit right there. Maybe a few inches short of 'right there'. Really, I'm, heh, so serious: he could'a stopped with the prison thing. Or maybe the violent trembling thing. Or the murderer thing.

Yeah. That would'a been nice.

The whole twisted evening caught up with me then, wet knives in each fist and eyes burning blue, and I caved. I found the wall closest to the streetlight—had to stay close to some kind of light--and fell against it, sobbing way before I hit the ground.

It was all about the drug. It all made sense now: intimate, visceral sense that you couldn't back away from. He needed it to stay alive. He ran out too soon, every day. Too little, but booze helped keep him on his feet. Every day. There was a chance of suddenly running out, of suddenly losing consciousness and waking up, screaming, in a smear of his own blood and pain, only to hope that the one girl who understood his problem, his life would come along and save his mind and body... every day.

And if she didn't come, he would die.

If he messed up on the track, Krew was there. He did something to the eco root, spiked it or something. Making him… turn into something with black nails and eyes, if no one was there to help with the syringe. Just tonight, just tonight… no one was there to help. He didn't die. But someone else did, and then when he got over it, he came so close to dying in the alley—he _needed_ more of it, even after something like that! Needed the booze to keep it going, it still wasn't enough!

I screamed weakly into my crossed arms, the sound ricocheting back to me with the warmth eaten out of it. The whole blue-black world seemed empty.

Overdose, withdrawal. There were people poisoning him with too much of it. There were people starving him of it. Either way, he was dead. Mar Haggai was dead. And I wasn't dealing with a dead man, or a murderer. I just wasn't. I couldn't deal; I couldn't take it. That was it.

If I had my way—and I had an obscenely profound motivation and thirty different side-streets at my disposal for this option—this fucked-up night would be the last time I ever saw Mar Haggai.

And it was, for the most part.

Because by then, three or four or eleven weeks into it… keeping away from him was addicting. It wasn't the thrill of evading him anymore: it was the lure of never having to deal with shit like that again. Mar was gone. It was all about the weightlessness, the no-strings-attached of my old life, and it hit like a smooth gel on a sore burn. I couldn't convince myself to waltz on back into his tangled-up existence for the lotto. I liked where I was. Nightshifts and clubs and broken-down cars fit me just fine.

Mar wasn't pokin' his head into Dax-central for all the hookers on South-street. And so it stayed, for weeks and weeks and weeks.

I got kinda wigged of what it would mean to actually _go_ back. What: once burned, twice shy? More like bazillion times burned, just shy enough to back out with balls intact. I won't tell you that my ride with him left me without any scratches. Hey, wise up. I saw a guy OD on the hardest stuff you can get, I stuck a fucking needle in him to get him to wake up and not kill me, found out that he was a prison-junkie, an emotional four-lane-crash and that he's offed someone—and… murdered someone else, a _kid_--and all this _after_ he destroyed my oh-so-intact chastity. Yeah, real soul-mates-forever material, right there.

Couldn't find a better man in a nunnery. Shit.

Plus, of all the fucked up twists imaginable… I actually… think I fell for him. For real. In that weird, dense way where you don't know why you like someone, but you do. I liked Mar, even as I dragged him out of that alleyway. I especially liked the Mar he'd been—the Mar I didn't really know, who hung with his dad in the wastelands and swam at the beach and always wore blue. But I liked him, regardless.

No biggie. Nothin' that ain't solved with a few nights out. He was just too much damn trouble.


	13. TWELVE

A/N: Geeze, I truly do forget about this sometimes XD Aaaahah! Oh well, next chapter! (Two more!)

Sorry if Dax is sappy and awkward. 'Cos… well, I think he's earned the right to be.

Poor babe. (PS: Poor Jak x 43) Also, note the slight reference to TPL and Dax's chores within. XD

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

TWELVE

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Nearly two and a half months later, I found out I had a serious health problem: weak knees.

Don't really have an excuse. My self-proscribed cure of 'a few nights out' just ended up wearing me down, making it so I didn't wanna roll out of bed in the morning. Couldn't hold out against him, even after all I'd had to swallow. Maybe I was hoping he'd leave me alone after I stopped in to see him for a while, just a while, then I'd go on with my merry life, even if I woke up again and again in all combinations of hung-over, strung out and sore to see it wasn't so merry after all…

"So, uh… how come they're lettin' you outside the city now? They think you learned your lesson or somethin'?"

Boots scraping on the dead city. Burned-out indigo sky.

"It's just DeadTown."

…But he looked awful. Too awful.

I mean, I've made cracks about him looking bad when he wakes up, maybe before he's had his morning bowl of Dark Ec-O's… but this was beyond all that. He was wrapped up in a ratted blue shirt and jeans, even though you could see your breath outside. Bottle of gin in his pocket, heat seeping from him like a radiator. He took a gulp from it every so often, out of habit. Since I knew what it was for—y'know, a down-payment on his survival—I didn't needle him for it.

It'd been a long time. And the last time I… I just didn't know what to think of him. How far away to stand. How scared spitless I should be. And I'm not thinking anything good'll come of it—exactly the opposite—but a guy can only call out what's in front of his face and… he was so different.

He shook. If you watched long enough, his fingers would twitch, and the twitch would slide to his chest like a killer air-bubble in his brown blood.

Cough. Cough. Cough.

We got to a rise in the scummy concrete path, gross soup swilling below us. I had to help him up the steps—the way he seemed to creak when he walked, he just needed a hand under his arm. He let it happen, and nothing inside me freaked out when I touched him. His breath was slower, nowhere near as assholish and angry as before. I don't know how someone can _breathe_ arrogant confidence… but Mar definitely wasn't doing it now.

He looked like he was hurting. All the time. His baggy clothes were absorbing the twitches and jolts, but he lost a little bit of himself every time.

He'd called me for days before this. Days! Persistent: which is a big word for me, but this twisted situation called for a dictionary. Before I 'agreed', I sat Tess down and told her everything. She's an adorable little faghag, listened to my stories without a ghost of a flinch: when I finished, she tugged me close and told me to get out of town. Ha.

"This is one hell of a date," I grumbled, glancing around the downright rank epicenter of filth that was DeadTown, made all the better by color-gutting twilight. Goddamn his vampire complex. I heard a (squat, diseased, pimply) thing croak, and splash into something dark and goopy, and shivered. The place looked like some sort of grey hell with wet oily pits instead of fire. "Lovin' the wildlife."

"It's great," Mar whispered reverently.

Yeah. That sound normal to you? Normal, bitchy Mar who won't even spare a kind word for the guy who… yeah? Not exactly.

He'd been… acting weird. The fact he was falling to pieces in front of me wasn't the only reason I called him different. He'd… picked me up. Actually come to my place and waited outside for me. Shit. I didn't want to touch him on the ride there: just hung close on the back of his zoomer, wincing as every stoplight made me jolt into his scalding, craggy back. And where does he want to go? DeadTown.

I'll admit, I'd never seen it. Didn't want to: I'd heard too many things, and I like my pretty pelt in one piece, thanks. But the way he acted when we got there (after he'd shot up some small and now wet, _so_ wet and brown and four-feet-wide-splattered critter), it was like he was in Wonderland, drifting between the crumbling pillars with his hands out, palms up. He'd stumbled forward and forward, dredging on through the decayed clumps of city until his coughing fits shook him too hard to move, and he hid the freckles of blood on his fist. He slowed down, then.

But now… now we were where he wanted to be. He broke free of my hands, loped a few awkward steps and stopped, staring up at the big-ass, lopsided ruin dumped on a crumbling hill in front of us. He spread out his hands again, and he laughed.

He laughed, and it was a weak golden sound. It also convinced me he was fucking off his rocker by this point, laughing at a teetering pile of wooden crap, even if the sound made my heart retreat into my spine. But he turned back a little, mouth open in a half-grin, _too_ human, _too_ organic for stiff, square-jawed Mar, and shouted (rasped, voice cracking like fucking thirteen-year-old) over his shoulder at me:

"Get over here and look at this!"

His eyes were blue. Even now that the sun'd vamoosed, they were really, really blue. Coloring book blue. I had to swallow. Counted my steps up to him.

"I'unno, Mar, it just looks like a big pile of wood to me…" I scratched my head, not bothering to hide how skeptical I was of our little 'outing'. He'd never even known the second cousin twice removed of the Precursorian translation of the word romantic, but why—damnit, why was I still thinkin' like that?

He'd… killed. Had to remember that. Came to _me_ to get him out of it. Son of a bitch.

Son of a _bitch_.

"Just a big pile of tree rot," I breathed, looking away.

"No, no—you don't get it…" He took me by the elbow and, with a new fizzling kind of energy, nudged me past the crumbling pillars and onto the scruffy dead grass, breathing excitedly near my ear. I'll never forget the creaking of the old wood on the path, so rare and dry, as he pushed and pushed and stumbled past me and pushed again, half-smiling mouth open and giving and full of air.

…Aaaaaand we were there, standing stupidly in what looked like an old tinkering station.

"Whoopie. We're here." I sniffed, glancing around. Stone-age equipment hung in the dark windows, dead vines dripping from the ceiling. The second layer of the old wood adobe hung above us, creaking like it was gonna drop a load and a half on our heads. I could just imagine the pillars just… folding over like broken fingers. Squish. Didn't like it. "I'd hate to have to clean this place…"

I wasn't working to kiss his ass anymore, but he didn't seem to notice. He was too caught up in this little-kid excitement, and there was something wrong and nauseating about that idea when it was punctuated by him uncapping the gin and taking a generous gulp, before slipping it back into his pocket, coughing absently, and rooting around for something. His eyes were still real, real bright.

"Look at the wood."

He touched it in a wide arc, drawing his dry fingers across the windowsill. Looking out reverently on something different than I saw. Maybe I could see… that the hut was nice. Wood bent and shaped was something I'd never seen: not like the water slums, where boards were strapped together regardless of size or sharp edges, 'cos it was all trash. Make the best of what you had, get a roof over your head or make one before the rain comes.

But this wasn't just survival. This was living. This was… careful. A house. Home. This place was made for one person, or two people who loved each other, and it only belonged to them. It wasn't an apartment: wasn't soulless and coated with the cigarette scum of a thousand other people pissing and sweating in it before you.

Made me think that the elusive 'happy family' wasn't just a sunshine-shot bedtime story. This proves it had a habitat, at least. Maybe it was real… but not in this city. I shook my head again.

"What can I say? Nice décor, very rustic: a little lighter on the rot would be nice?" I shrugged, clueless feelings solidifying into something a few notches short of disdain. Covering the little nugget of epiphany, probably. "I guess I don't get it, Mar."

He looked over his shoulder, smiling again.

"C'mere."

I flinched when he took my arm, and I could feel things start to slide downhill faster'n a greased hiphog. Shit.

He sat me down on the big glass bubble: I didn't take right to being _handled_, and turned rigid to let him know it. My butt hit it with a tinny little thud, and his huge hand wrapped around my wrist. It was such a familiar, commanding grip that it made my lip curl—it was a restraining hold, and one he was _famous_ for. I only looked up when I had to, and even then found his baby blues waiting for me directly above ye olde flesh shackle. I just about lit into him for acting so weird, for dragging me out of my goddamn flat to go and rub down some old hut in the middle of _DeadTown,_ but the look on his face stopped me.

He was looking at me. Watching me, no hint of the creeps or his furious fucking rage anywhere. A hint of his old wry appraisal, maybe, but it was watered down by the bold indigo rimming his eyes. Tired, but…

Watching me like I existed.

"You're dead," I whispered suddenly, the realization blooming white and crystalline behind my eyes. I looked at him and tried to think what that meant, and made my mouth move again: "You're dying."

He didn't shake his head. He trembled subtly, just watching me.

"No," he said at last. "I'm living."

"Well, fuck me: nobody told me it was opposite day, pal, 'cos you…you--" I hissed tremulously, running out of furious words as he _just looked at me_. I stared him down, facts circulating with my suddenly itching pulse. The things I knew didn't want to come out under that stare, all while… he wasn't getting colder but I could _see_ things now. Dead things, dead feelings on him. Finally, I forced it out:

"When's the last time you lit up?"

"Two days ago. And a night," he supplied softly. Then he grinned at me.

He fucking grinned at me. A guileless, clear-eyed white grin that made me _love_ him, sudden and stupid and inexplicable and sharp in the pus-coated bruise where my heart was. I coughed and tried not to gag at the slam of knowledge—the _pain_ he must be in, the stupid, burning pain distorting that happy grin at the edges, wearing at his bones—and as I thought about two days and a night and how many inches and minutes of death and seizure that made, my free hand gravitated to his wide creaking chest and his covered it so warm and quick that I lost something. I don't know if it was important, but I lost it.

"I missed you," he said like he had been waiting ages to say it and his thick dry fingers invaded the wet spaces between my claws and I shuddered so hard I made a noise.

I couldn't look at him. Gods, I had to get my ass out of there. He wasn't asking me for anything, he _wasn't_: he didn't deserve anything from me, fuck if I was gonna give it, but just sitting here listening was just as bad as—

"You're killin' yourself," I moaned, the sounds rising from deep in my gut. "You should be dead by n-now."

"I'm not angry," he whispered. "I don't hate people."

"So what if you're not foaming at the mouth anymore: what is this!?" I bit back, Is this purgatory, is this punishment? Why'd you tell me? Do you get some sorta sick satisfaction out of havin' someone watch you off yourself?!"

His fingers dug into my palm and I had to shut up. Couldn't bring myself to say anything for a second. When I did, the words drifted out, dull and lost.

"You're on your way out, Mar."

"I can keep living like this," he said, voice cracking. Grabbing. Holding.

"I'm not dealin' with a dead guy. I'm not."

And in a flush of sensation I realized he was still holding me at the wrist, and suddenly hated it with a vengeance. I clutched at the first concrete _anything_ I'd felt and full-throttled it, throwing my arm to the side as I bucked away.

"Lemme go, idiot!"

Real strength burrowed up from that shapeless, shrinking body, deflecting and controlling and defusing. His hand twisted, and his fingers brushed my palm, and he caught me all over again as he leaned forward to kiss me.

Gods, I wanted to cry. Wanted to scream.

I had no idea what was happening, no idea where I was or why. But I let him do it. His lips were dry just like the rest of him, and he eased them to the side. Fit his mouth to mine, and just pressed. I puffed out two frantic breaths before I locked up against him, and felt my throat close up. Something dangerous and tender caught in my chest, and I froze all the way down to my veins before I could twitch and send it tearing out of me with a hot spray of blood. Mar didn't move, except for his hands… gently touching mine.

Nothing like the first time. Nothing. No taking. No forcing. No pushing. Just… a kiss.

When he drew back, I blinked and turned my head to the side.

"Dax," he said, quietly. He smiled, I knew, with his fingers carefully folded against my slick palm. The floor of the hut wobbled in my eyes and the name was so _wrong_, and I suddenly felt like I was gonna heave.

I shook my head. Stopped it. Stopped everything.

"Gotta go."

He didn't say anything as I got up. Then, abused and gravelly and soft, he murmured:

"Okay."

I pretended I could hear his hands shaking.

"I have to go," I repeated icily, for no reason at all. No reason except it gave me the focus and the pull to walk out of that wood-caged place, and not look back to where I knew Mar was sitting in the house that was never his, watching me leave.

I ran over the dead grass. Ran over the bridge that creaked just like him. The second I was behind a pillar, I let my knees give and dash me to the ground. DeadTown crumbling and dying around me, I sobbed for the second time in forever, for a reason I'd never had before. Something that had nothing to do with myself, and everything to do with someone else.

He was dead. Mar was dead and dying and he was doing it to _himself_. I didn't know why. Even though I knew the facts, I couldn't make it real… couldn't get it. So I left him there. Sitting. Falling apart in the dark, in somebody else's home. Alone.

For all I knew, he stayed there 'till dawn and burned his eyes out.


	14. THIRTEEN

A/N: Ho shyit. Even I feel bad doing this.

Unghhh.

(On the bright side, FFAK will be updated shortly as well. Cheerio!)

* * *

THIRTEEN

* * *

Another night.

Just another night found me trying to do my job: buffing rag in hand, hand frozen on the bar. Super-slow weekdays helped my little introspective issue, 'cos I didn't have much to do… but that wasn't much of a relief, with the crap I was turning over in my thick head.

I mean… I hate to jump into the dirty details so quick, but I could take abuse. Honestly, I've proven that ten times over. I could take being smacked around, especially when there's something stringless in it for me, so long as the memories stay longer than the bruises. And 'cos of that, maybe I don't pick up the most virtuous of rampaging sugar-daddies, and don't exactly know what its like to get a valentine, but…

What happened last time at Dead Town: the whole reboot of Mar, with the picking up and the looking and the smiling and the… that was _normal_, wasn't it? Sure, _he_ was fucked up, but wasn't that how normal people act in sitcoms? Below that, even! He hadn't even done anything nice for me! He hadn't said a _single_ nice thing to me! He'd just talked to me. Told me what was going on in his sad excuse for a life. How he was killing himself, y'know? I just… He wasn't my boyfriend; he wasn't anything but a good and troublesome fuck that I visited every so often to get a taste of the other side: to get an ego-boost of _just_ how good my life is!

I dug into a dimple on the bar with my rag, not liking how my thoughts were spiraling. Tightening.

It was… just my name. Anybody could say my name. Could look at me, say "Dax", and smile like that. Anybody, say, wanting to get into my pants. It'd be a hell of a bad pickup line, but anybody could do it.

But he was… I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't even see him smile when he said it, but knew he did, but I couldn't take this. I just… couldn't. A week after I left him at the tipsy house, I was only sure of one blessed thing: no.

So I avoided him. Again. He… called me a few times after that. Left just two messages full of that rattling breathing, maybe a (small, unsure) 'um' or three. It… got into my dreams, sometimes. I'd already sworn off of watching the races because of those dreams: Mar'd been sucking ass on the track, and I added those visuals to the ever-growing list of things I just _could not_ swallow anymore. He wasn't his normal confident self, that was for sure, but I knew how things were stacked against him. I tuned in every so often… but hell like he knew.

He was probably already off his abstinence program. Back on his fix. Living, rasping, hurting people, and getting a lot of ass. Typical Mar. Just… having a little trouble on the track. He'd be back soon. The man was like a bad rash that way.

So there I was, settled behind the bar in our yellow-lit one-room saloon, trying to get on with my life… but feeling kinda hollow. Exhausted. I mean, livin' where I do… you see a lot of things. See them, but don't touch them or push them away or have sex with 'em. I'd been marked, kinda. I'd seen too much, and I'd felt twice that much. But I still… gods, there was something about it that I just couldn't drop. I thought I was the only one in the world crazy enough to keep… liking someone like that, even after everything: but then the concrete jungle spit out a reminder that I wasn't alone. Alone… and maybe the worst off I could be.

I'd heard the door squeak, but didn't pay attention. She stood in front of me for maybe two minutes, face blacked out by the cataract of the bar light, before piping up, sudden and husky.

"Hi."

I looked up, and immediately twisted my rag over itself, eyes nearly popping out. It was… aw hell, it was Mar's sister. If I'd just seen her feet from under the bar, maybe I would've caught on faster, but the voice did it for me. The sweet girl was hidden in a leather jacket and coarse clothes, definitely not her usual fare, but street-smart for my area. I swallowed and tried to cover whatever I'd given away, wondering stupidly if it was even important anymore. The kid who'd been stuffed under Mar's bed was a different animal than the one across the bar from his sister.

"Uh. Hey," I started, then looked around into the silence. What was there to say? I'd never technically been introduced to her: most I'd got was a secondhand bitch-fest and some bunny slippers. So I played it safe, hanging a near-sunny grin on my handsome mug and ushering the apparently anonymous gal into my booze lair.

"Welcome to the Shrapnel Shack. What can I getcha?"

She looked over her shoulder, like she felt the ugly bears in the corner eyeing her—gods, if they were eyeing her any harder they'd X-ray her—but instead spoke into her high collar, keeping her voice soft and safe.

"A moment, if you… have the time."

Unexpected, to put it mildly.

And I was about to make a joke, like I usually do. A Moment? Sorry, toots, we don't have that drink anymore. How about Three Minutes in Heaven? It'll last you longer. Instead, I looked down, following the glossy wiggles of neon light up the lacquered bar to my right. I actually thought about what I was gonna say.

"S'hard to get in a place like this," I muttered after a minute or two, still not looking. "Y'sure you don't just want a drink?"

"We can go somewhere."

I couldn't even ask her where she got off asking a random barkeep to step outside with her in the back-alley of the worst side of town, just cos've the way she sounded and looked. She had a mission. Technically, we didn't even know each other, but… the way Mar ran, he left his mark wherever he landed. Scars. We could see each others, I think.

I glanced up and worked the rag a little, keeping my protective silence. Man, her eyes were pretty. Hurt, but pretty.

"Please," she said.

Bit my lip. Ran my tongue over it, searching for a scar—wound, now, freshly reopened and obvious—to lick. Hers was bleeding into her voice. She could want me for so many reasons, all of 'em to do with Mar: and I couldn't think of a one that'd be worth my time and job and life and… I could get in so much trouble for this.

So much trouble.

"You know out back?" I said under my hand, thumbing at my nose for good measure.

"Think I can find it." She hid her hands in her pocket and disappeared out the door.

Then again, I was already in trouble.

True to her word, the gal possessed a basic definition of 'out' and 'back', and met me there with her jacket buttoned up to her white neck, arms clenched around her little middle. She smiled at me, quick and strange, then looked around the fenced-in cement yard like it was going to bite her. I suggested we move someplace else—or maybe just started walking toward the street, nervously, until I heard her behind me.

We were halfway to the street when I came up with a stupid, stupid idea. It wasn't even that she didn't seem comfortable with talking about anything in the street, or the fact that the streets weren't a great place to do anything other than mug and be mugged—it was just an idea, and it came out before I could stop it.

"We can go… to my place, if that's cool."

And I was about to say, not like _that_. _Definitely_ not like that, honey, if you hadn't guessed already. But she just nodded and walked ahead of me, right next to… the alley. _The_ alley. She almost turned like she was gonna go in: it _was_ a shortcut to the main street, but maybe I imagined it, because the orderly trash-can rimmed darkness looked so eager to suck another person in and break their mind. I broke all barely-acquaintance rules and lunged forward to grab her arm--

"Gods—not that. Not there. C'mon, just—go around--"

--and pulled her past it. Sick.

Once we were on her Zoomer—parked right under a streetlamp that actually still had a light in it, smart chick—she handed me a helmet and gunned it. The thing was flashy and beautiful and obviously a custom job, but I hardly had time to notice what I was sitting on top of before my arm was out to the side of her head, pointing down black streets and leading her to my pad. Hot-rodding skills must've been genetic too, 'cos… damn, she could've cleared the Port in an ice-storm.

I don't even know why I had to take it that far. I could've just heard her out behind the bar and nodded at all the right times and said something about her crazy big brother—whatever she wanted to hear—and gone back inside. Started polishing glasses again. I figured Orla had probably noticed I was gone by the time me and… Keira were on my broken down couch and I'd plugged in the one light cell I currently had to my name. Man, did I mention how awesome life is?

At first we just… looked at each other, lame housekeeping efforts on my part lighting us both like empty jack-o-lanterns. Then, out of the blue (or black), she apologized.

"I'm sorry."

I raised an eyebrow, trying to settle into my doughy excuse for a couch.

"For what?" I asked. She looked up at me, pretty face sad but dry.

"For him," she whispered.

I winced deeply, caught off guard. Like I'd expected that? I screwed with the buttons clinging to the arm of the couch and thought about it. The fact that she needed to come here and apologize _for him_… was pretty ridiculous.

I wasn't above pretty ridiculous. I'd been eating and breathing it for months. I shrugged stiffly.

"Sorry don't fix as much as mommy and daddy want us to think," I muttered.

She looked down at her lap, like she knew it was true. Then her clean mechanic hands slid inside her dull brown jacket and came out with something wrapped in blue cloth, which she set between us like a peace offering.

"I want to show you some things, if… that's alright."

It wasn't alright, but I needed to see it. If it was… what I thought it was, I needed proof. And I got it. I didn't know what to take away from it, but I got my proof. Mar was… human once. More than human. Loved, and whole, and… good.

He was beautiful as a little kid. Wiry and top-heavy just like now, but with this manic little grin that made my lips twitch. There were only about seven pictures, but they said so much: the browned one of tiny sunhat-dwarfed Keira and little Mar crouched in the ocean someplace, Mar's blue eyes sparking eagerly toward the camera like there was someone important behind it; the one of Mar pulling a face as his dad—gods, was the man built like a barbarian, all brown with white hair knotted behind his head—crammed him against his sweating side. They were out in the sunlight of… what I guessed was Spargus, out on those trips Mar told me he loved. It was real.

Keira told me how he couldn't talk for the longest time. How his dad never pushed him to talk, said that it was his boy's own way of living: listening. I think he… always could talk, he just didn't want to. I don't know how I knew it, but I did. I mean, I couldn't live without talking, it'd be the seventh circle of hell for me, but… for him, it fit.

She didn't say when the switch happened, but obviously he was talking by the time he came out of prison. Can't help but think that it… would've hurt, to see that change. The fact she didn't really tell me what happened to his dad made me think she was well-aware that I'd gotten my hands on the information myself, so we didn't say anything about it.

I took the pictures from her, not pinching or touching them too much, and just carded through them, one after another after another then did it again. Surreal magazine images, all of them, except for the one with Mar standing in front of a broken down old shop window. Maybe Keira had taken it herself, not really realizing there was nothing left to see. Maybe she was trying to believe otherwise. Mar was… he had to have been fifteen, and already he was too far gone.

His smile was a flat show of teeth, and the circles under his eyes were like bruised flower petals. His dad must've been dead by that point. It showed.

I thought about them for a long time, turning each one over in my head and my fingers. My dingy apartment almost disappeared around me. When I looked up, it took me a few seconds to wake up and realize Keira was staring at me, sad as can be.

"He must have hurt you," she said softly.

I shrugged. Funny, how I never really remembered the actual sting and pain of different things. I'd been tossed around a lot, scraped and punched: anything worthy of a bandage didn't matter. That shit was just a Slummer Badge of Merit. It was… what came before he'd hurt me. Fear and an armful of humiliation. That was what mattered.

I guess it was the way I was looking at the pictures that tipped her off. The fact I was finally seeing the human in the messed-up monster I'd gone toe-to-toe with for so long… well, the surprise—and anguish--wasn't something I could hide.

"Hurt me," I repeated blankly, half-smiling and bringing that one picture of him and his dad back to the top. I tipped it so the yellow glare wouldn't bleach Mar's sun-bright face to nothing. "S'that what they're calling it these days."

Her feathery eyebrows drew together, hands clasping.

"Your heart."

I laughed. Snorted, really. Sorry. Couldn't help it.

"Don't think I have that anymore, sweets. Sold it for basic cable."

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, stricken, and she wasn't apologizing for my bad choice in swaps. I peered at her sideways. The dull confusion at the sudden color rising in her cheeks just made my face twist grumpily. Gods, I was _tired_.

"Quit that."

Keira just shook her head viciously, silky hair whipping around. She brushed it back behind her ears and stared hard at the floor, throat jumping as she tried not to cry.

"I'm sorry I came here--that I bothered you with this. I'm sorry. I…have to do this," she explained brokenly, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth for a second, steadying herself. She hiccupped. "I have to justify the things he does, even when I don't know what they are half the time. Because he… oh gods, it just isn't his fault."

It wasn't his fault. I knew what she meant.

I tried to imagine living with him from the preteen years. Surviving through the years after his dad left him and… her dad got him addicted to dark eco, and… now, watching him kill himself. I felt something black open inside me.

"Yeah," I whispered, and I knew it was the truth. Dead Town showed me that. "I know."

She nodded, green eyes wet with tears, and stayed upright as long as she could. But too soon the tremors worked her down to a wounded curl, her hands sealed over her eyes. She sobbed out:

"I love him. I love him so much, you wouldn't even—"

Finding it hard to breathe, I grabbed her arm and she grabbed me back, sudden and tight, and when we were half-tangled together in the middle of my broken couch, I realized we were complete strangers. I realized I hadn't even told her my name.

Didn't want to, now.

I held her. Dumbly, though, because I'd never _held_ anyone before in my life. But I guess you can't really hold someone wrong, unless you drop them. It didn't feel good, having her wet face crammed against my neck: every time she sobbed, the sound and the spasm ricocheted in my empty chest. It scraped and hurt, and I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't feel any warmth for her, she was still too new to me, but we had a place to put our mutual dread for one man, and that was enough. After a few minutes of it, struck dumb by the strange pain, I got the remote and thumbed on the TV. Just… anything to make noise.

But I'd left it on the racing station, and it was the right time for the right channel. The weekly run was well begun: second lap. I flinched and tried to change it, but the remote tipped out of my fingers, and the tinny roar of the crowd roused her anyways. Keira froze and peered, eyes swollen, past my arm at the static-torn screen, then gently fell away from me. The places where she'd touched were clammy. She rubbed at her face, which gave me permission to rub at my neck. Already things weren't livable: she was too close to me.

"Have you seen him?" She asked me after a second or two, voice raw from crying. "He's been missing, only… showing up at the races and they—they won't even let me in to see him—"

"He hasn't been home?" I rasped. She shook her head. "Does he have any other places he sleeps?"

That hurt her. She had to swallow a few times before finding her voice again.

"He—he has to come home, h-he doesn't trust anywhere else…"

To keep him safe during the day.

The fact that Mar hadn't floated back into his club-filled self-destruct cycle was more shocking to me than I thought it'd be. I couldn't find anything to say to her. I didn't know what it _meant_, for precursors' sake. He could be anywhere, and anywhere wasn't safe for him.

Anywhere, like on screen.

I'd turned from her, only to find Mar briefly pictured on the tube, screen-scrollers detailing his recent string of losses and expectations for the future. His face was a bony mess, hair and eyes leeched of color. The camera, disinterested and unaware of two tense messes nearly doubled over a sector away, took it back to an aerial view and that was that. He was racing. Still racing, now. I barely had time to think about it before… gods, before hell broke loose.

It was so eerie, seeing that little dot I knew was Mar go careening into the side of the track.

It must have been a basic glitch in the zoomer, or an impossibly bad call: he was rocketing along as smooth as anything, gaining on a sporty red zoomer, then he just banked left and exploded into a vomit of smoke and sound. The scrollers went blank, and the idiot tech shouted over the link, shrieking at the camera to jerk up from its steady slide around the track and lock on that smoke. Smoke, pouring, filling. My heart had stopped.

He didn't get out of it. I waited with my hands crammed under my arms and Keira dug her fingernails into her lips, but the seconds of the race ticked on and he didn't limp out with a brave, cocky grin twisting his too-thin mouth. Too slowly, a team of mechanics scurried in their little white suits over to the crash, fanning their hands in a panic to clear out the smoke belching from the twisted metal. Then they dragged Mar out by the scruff of his neck like a too-heavy doll; he was covered in blood, each jerk twitching his jaw up, throat blanched fish-belly white.

Keira screamed, loud and real.

"No. Oh _gods_."

I was out the door before I could ask myself what the hell I hoped to do, or what was left to save.

* * *

We caught them at the hospital. Both of us crashed off her zoomer and shoved ourselves into the intricate mob at the fringes of the parking lot, lorded over by the big medical tram with the flashing red lights and the limp body being loaded out of it—

"Mar! M-mar, gods, are you—"

I was nearly swimming in the people, Keira floundering close behind me, until a thick white arm cut across my front and _shoved_, and I nearly lost my footing. I glared up, so close to the stretcher, and shoved back at the arm, which belonged to some kind of medical assistant with a mask. He was shining with sweat, shouting over the noise:

"Excuse me, I'll have to ask you to stay back, sir—"

I tossed his arm off and grabbed Keira at the wrist, getting in his face.

"Then I'll have to say no, asshole. I know this guy, I gotta to talk to him—"

"Please—"

"_No—"_

Mar, slow and pained, opened his eyes and mumbled something as he came to, more ruckus exploding around him because of it. His hazy blue eyes flickered around, touching on the throbbing human chaos and the countless unfamiliar faces and the fogged tubes stuck in him—then, finally, through the gap underneath somebody's arm, _me_. His bloody chest heaved, and, like he was lifting the world, he sat up and knocked the O2 mask off of his red mouth, only to cover it a second later when he coughed, corrosive and wracking. He reached for me with the same hand, now dripping with hot crimson splatter.

"St-stop, let me talk to him--"

The stretcher was still moving, pushed by a dozen hands, and I couldn't ask them to stop or slow down. Mar was a mess of split flesh down his right side, gleaming with shrapnel and sticky red asphalt abrasions on top of the huge gash stretching from underneath his arm to his hip. His left eye was cut to his temple, all of it mixing into a matted red patty of skin. My breath caught in my chest looking at him, but I ran alongside him anyways, feet pounding against the concrete.

The nurses heads' snapped back and forth from the injured racing hero to the scruffy slum kid, one shouting past her mask:

"Who is he?"

"Family?"

"He's m—" Mar coughed again, thrashing against all attempts to make him lay down and take the mask again. He shook his head as hard as he could. Dogged. Certain. "He's my best friend."

They let me close, and he fell back on the stretcher when my hand found his.

He looked up at me, the sudden burst of sanitary hospital lights as we crashed across the foyer lighting up a waxy film over his one whole blue iris that made my heart catch in my throat all over again. His other hand fell atop my wrist, not pulling. Just holding.

"Daxter… Dax. Let me drive you home. After this?" He whispered imploringly, suddenly, looking up at me like he'd never seen me this way.

In that instant, I realized he was blind. Mostly blind. He couldn't see.

He'd stayed till morning.

I couldn't hear for my tears. The words made no sense and I smiled just because I didn't understand and there wasn't anything else to do because the stretcher was going so _fast_.

"What?"

"Can I drive you home?" He asked again, hand tightening around mine, clumsy and slippery and warm.

I couldn't be scared of his hands anymore. Couldn't.

"…Yeah," I choked after we crashed through another set of doors and I could talk again. I looked at him, then smeared the blood off his forehead with a trembling hand, nearly gasping with the effort of keeping pace. "Yeah, you can drive me home. Only if you promise to stay put."

Something happened—something announced by a sudden deluge of beeps and shrill noises and Mar jerking violently on the reddening cot--and the nurses forced me away long enough to wrestle the mask back on him. His chest pumped up and down. I fought my way back to him, this time with Keira.

Gas already dampening his mind, his chin jerked up when she came close enough, and his ruined eyes flickered in recognition.

"Keira," he said softly, bloodstained teeth multiplying in a hazy, plastic-capped smile.

She couldn't say anything. She held her mouth with one hand and ran alongside the stretcher as best she could, just watching him. His big fingers spread, reaching toward her a little.

"I'm sorry I didn't call."

In that second, we both knew where he'd been all this time. Dead Town. Keira nodded and sobbed once and reached for his wrist, white fingers coming away wet with dark blood when a jolt of the cart tore him away from her, and the rush made it impossible to catch him. As they wheeled him away at a run, he looked back at me, lips hung high on one side, useless left eye swollen shut.

"Don't split before I get out," he rasped, and the white doors flew open and shut behind him, sealing in all the noise and the life and all the screaming momentum. I staggered toward them anyways, hands curled into fists and tears hot on my face. I couldn't feel my body, couldn't feel my heartbeat. I couldn't feel anything but silence, and the dwindling chaos I could see through the small door windows, but I raised my hand anyways, jabbing it after him.

"Like hell I'll split! If you bite it in there, I'll kick your ass to next week, Mar!" I screamed at the closed doors. Keira collapsed into a chair behind me, sobbing, because she _knew_. "I mean it! Don't you dare die!"

When they announced him dead two hours later, I didn't have a straw left to pull.

Life with him was a party, but now the party's over.

I got nobody to drive me home.


End file.
